Wake Up Call
by Lord Mendasuit
Summary: A slightly different movement utilized by one combatant changed a battle from the encounter that cemented a savior's determination into one that sealed the doom of a planet. But then again, the savior had promises to keep, and he'd be damned before he allowed something as silly as dying to prevent him from keeping them.
1. Prologue

In that moment, when they both jumped at each other, the smaller one allowed himself to feel impressed.

Even lost in his rage, even lost to the absolute need to kill, drunk on the power that coursed through his veins. Even with all that…

It was something so secret that he kept it a secret even from himself. He admired the jackass. The guy had trained so much, had always put so much effort into everything ninja, that he couldn't help himself in respecting the guy, at the very least, for that. His respect only grew when he noticed that despite having lost all semblance of coherent thought by this point, Sasuke still fought like a skilled ninja.

Which was why Naruto wasn't entirely shocked when, despite being a roaring lunatic by that point, Sasuke's abilities allowed him to twist himself in the specific way that would not only allow himself to dodge Naruto's Rasengan almost entirely (it'd graze his right side slightly), but to also shove the raging, snarling Chidori in his hand straight through Naruto's chest.

He only gasped when he felt his life drain along with his blood, flowing out of the hole in the middle of his chest.

By the time he saw the horrifying monster that had become Sasuke throw his head back and let out cackling laughter, his vision was already mostly covered in black and he had already started to lose all grip on his consciousness.

* * *

The blond's eyes snapped open. "Tch… Again with the same dream…" He mumbled to himself, standing up from his sitting position. The childlike figure stood up and sighed, running a hand through the spiky mess of blond hair on his head, suppressing a shiver when his hands brushed his ears. He trailed the edge of his right ear, up to its pointy tip.

Even to this day he was still surprised by them.

"Welcome to the land of the living." Said a mocking voice not too far from him. The androgynous quality of the voice made him blink and search the room for where it came from. Seeing the room empty, he closed his eyes and sighed.

"Show yourself." He commanded. His raspy voice sounded much like a child who had smoked a whole Marlboro factory at some point in his life. His eyes narrowed as a greenish, blurry silhouette made itself apparent in the room. "What is it?"

"I am merely a messenger. As they say, don't shoot the messenger." The androgynous voice continued. A white form that seemed to be made of smoke formed underneath the green blur, which rapidly turned into a long, flowing green cloak.

"What the hell does Pram want this time?" Asked the blond, pointy eared individual.

"Lady Pram requests your presence at once." The ghostly creature informed the boy who was still standing in front of his throne. The boy merely raised one eyebrow. "This time, it's actually important, too."

The blond chuckled. "Fine, I'll go." He informed the ghost.

The little creature seemed to be looking intently at him and remained doing so for more than a full minute.

"Are you not aware? Master dismissed you, beast. Return to your master, creature of sin." Informed a voice with a clearly defined feminine gender. There was no response from the ghost. With a noticeable flare of power, a feminine form wearing what could be described as a positively ridiculous outfit, seemingly composed of feathers over most of her body flashed into sight in front of the ghost. Her outfit always managed to draw a curious glance from him. It kind of resembled a doublet made from the remains of a pillow. It was odd. The blue ribbon in front didn't quite combine with the rest of it. "My master dismissed you. Leave at once."

This provoked a sigh from the blond. "Reo."

"Master, with all due respect-"

"Reo." The boy reiterated. "I am quite capable of taking care of myself." He explained, looking pointedly at the feather covered female. He sighed when he saw the tight grip kept on the shaft of the jeweled staff in her hand.

Nevertheless, she bowed low, and his eyes were drawn to the golden, glowing halo that floated above her head. She turned around and he watched, fascinated as the thick braid that her own blonde hair, a significantly darker shade than the boy's own, had been woven into swayed back and forth. Ah, always so expressive in everything but her face. His eyes lingered, for an instant, on her rounded ears.

"You should put a leash on your pets." The ghost stated nonchalantly.

The blond boy frowned. "You are dismissed, messenger."

The ghost disappeared, roaring its amusement in loud barks of laughter.

"Reo." The blond spoke, folding his hands over his chest as he sat on the throne again. The blonde woman walked inside the throne room once again, her expression carefully schooled into a scowl that would've sent men running for their lives.

"Master."

The blond frowned again. "I have a name."

The woman nodded. "You called for me, Lord Naruto?" Reo spoke, raising one delicate, blond eyebrow.

"You already know the drill. Chances are that Zetta did something ridiculously stupid again. I might be busy for a few weeks. Can I trust the Senate to run this place competently?"

"Of course not, Lord Naruto." The angelic figure said.

"That's what I expected. Regardless, there isn't much I can do about this. Deal with them in my absence, would you?" Naruto ordered.

The woman nodded, watching as her lord stood from his seat and cracked his neck. The black and red ensemble the boy wore began to move under invisible wind and in a flash of power, the boy was gone.

* * *

"Actually, no, this doesn't have to do with Zetta." The girl in the puffed up white dress informed him.

"For once?" The blond questioned.

"For once." She confirmed. "Remember the one favor you asked of me two years ago?"

Oh Naruto did remember it. Two years ago, he was weak. So incredibly weak, in fact, that he'd only managed to survive because he'd managed to invoke Pram's curiosity. No matter how hard he might try to deny it. Pram had seen something in him that no one else had. She had taken him under her wing and nurtured him to bring it out.

She, the Prodigious Oracle, the youngest demon to ever obtain the title of Overlord, had seen something in him. It still made him feel fuzzy inside and was the ultimate reason why he accepted to meet Pram now. He owed her his very existence. That and if it didn't go, well, Pram didn't bitchslap people. She wore a pair of manacles on her wrists that she used to smack idiots. She was fond of using them on Naruto's own abused skull.

He noticed her stare. He must have zoned out. "What of it?" He asked.

Pram smirked evilly. "I taught a polite apprentice, didn't I?"

Naruto snorted. "I'm not your apprentice anymore, Pram." He said, grinning. "And I've never been polite! Anyway, you said you had something to tell me?"

"No, I didn't say that. Anyway… I found it." She said, smirking widely. "Persuading Trenia wasn't easy at all, so you better be grateful-"

Pram couldn't ever finish her sentence before she was tackled to the floor "Thank you thank you thankyouthankyou!" Squeaked a child's voice as Pram blushed bright red. There was another squeak as Pram delivered a devastating uppercut towards her Apprentice's chin, sending him flying away. "Owie!" yelled Naruto as he sailed through the air. Er... Vacuum.

"Consider it a birthday gift." Pram stated, getting back to her feet. How she had been knocked to the nonexistent floor of the space between netherworlds she'd never know, but then again, Trenia had managed to plant a cornman there so who knows how the hell it worked. "As well as a late graduation gift."

Naruto smiled widely. "Thank you, Master."

Pram snorted. "You've said that a lot." Pram noted. "Anyway, go do whatever it is you do when I'm not training you." She said, waving him away. "I've got to see what trouble Zetta's gotten in this time. Haven't seen him since he went to challenge Tyrant Valvatorez."

"How does he get into so much trouble?" Asked Naruto randomly. "He is the most powerful overlord alive, even without Salome's power."

"Well, from what I've heard, at his peak, Tyrant Valvatorez was one of the most powerful beings in the universe." Pram said, resting her red-on-black eyes on the far distance. "Zetta's body might be the most powerful in the universe, but as long as his head is empty, he'll continue getting in trouble. For instance, he's one of the most powerful, if not the outright most powerful fire mage in the universe. He's not even aware of it." Pram said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "It took me years to get past the intense heat of the fireworks he uses to show off and the ice spell I used wasn't even powerful enough to nick his skin!"

Naruto laughed. "Maybe you're not as good as you think you are." He said.

"Get out of here before I turn you into an ice statueand chuck you at a sun." Pram snarled, glaring at the disappearing form of her apprentice.

* * *

"I'mgoingtoahumanworldtogetasou rceoffearenergykthxbye!" a black and red humanoid blur spoke really fast.

Reo sighed. At least this time he was going to do something productive. Maybe.


	2. The Setup For A Clichè

The blond's knees buckled. "I ain't gonna be just a face in the crowd!" He roared, planting his hands on the ground for support. He panted, every breath providing a much too necessary intake of air that he felt burn in his lungs.

The moment he tried to stand up, however, he felt an immense pressure in his stomach and he was lifted off the ground. A thankfully blunt spear had slammed into his stomach, a stalagmite of ice that rose from the ground and almost impaled him.

A great torrent of blood spilled from his mouth, and he only brought a hand to wipe the fluid that still stuck to his chin, a combination of blood and vomit. He would have laughed when he saw it freeze as soon as it made contact with the ground, but it would've hurt too much. "Is this the best you can do?" Taunted a feminine voice with a childlike, mocking quality to it that made Naruto's blood pump even faster than before. "Stay down. If you stand up, I will kill you."

He wanted to live. He was desperate to live. He should stay down. He should just lie down and let unconsciousness take him away. He'd be okay that way. He just had to do as she said.

"You are not worth my time. You're not worth the effort it'd take to kill you."

The childlike voice continued to mock him.

Was that what he had been reduced to? Hadn't he sworn to be better than this? He'd promised… he'd made a promise. He'd promised that he would never give up. He'd promised that he would never just lie down and die.

He could not remember who he had made the promise to, but it wasn't important. What was important was that he had made it. And he never. Ever. Broke a promise. "I… won't… give… up…" he muttered, bringing a hand up to remove the blood that had run towards his right eye. He had a very nasty cut on his forehead that was making it hard to remain concentrated.

"What was that? I can't hear you. Speak louder." The childlike voice ordered.

"I… said… that I… won't… give… up!" He repeated, a little louder, with much more force.

"I can't hear you!" Snapped the other one.

The blond grinned. "I WILL NEVER GIVE UP!"

The childlike voice stopped its taunting for a few seconds. Then the blond heard it laughing. For such a huge bitch, she sure had a nice laugh, he remarked. The white, childlike figure raised one hand, as a massive spear of ice took form. She gestured forward and the spear flew through the air.

It stopped when it was at an inch's distance from his forehead.

* * *

Pram smiled, as she remembered when she'd accepted the damnable brat as her apprentice in the first place. She wasn't like Zetta, who'd decided to train Salome on a whim and just randomly happened to stumble upon a diamond in the rough. Pram had actually tested her little pet project and made sure that the investment she would make was going to be well worth the effort.

She might not be the strongest in the cosmos, but she was on the higher end of the spectrum nonetheless and while there were an odd dozen or more who she was certain she couldn't defeat in a straight up battle, she was still very young and she still had to grow into her own full power.

Her reputation had made several high level demons assemble under her banner, believing her the oracle that she said she was. Trenia was content to let her read the Sacred Tome, since Zetta couldn't care less and he technically owned it.

But that hadn't been enough. She had even enlisted the help of that ridiculously powerful demon hunter and they'd STILL been defeated. Granted, Zetta at least had to work for that one victory.

So Pram decided that she'd raise her own counter to Zetta. She found a young, newly born demon in the underworld that fit the bill just right. Of course, she found the boy after basically explaining to them that they were fry to slaughter each other and whoever came out on top would be apprenticed under her and therefore granted protection from the whims of the lord of the underworld, Seedle and from other higher level demons who would otherwise utilize the Underworld as a shooting range.

She'd pushed the one year old demon so hard that, in a mere two years, the boy was powerful enough to create his own netherworld. Pitifully small, yes, but a feat worthy of an overlord nonetheless. Even if she could destroy his world with a flick of her wrist, even if it was about as large as a small city, he was happy with it.

Then, of course, Pram basically told him that he was free to do whatever he wanted with it since, as Overlord, he set the rules. She'd never expected for it to become what amounted to a shrine built to the worship of Ramen, or for him to basically make the most un-netherwordly netherworld ever. No fiery seas of flame, no gigantic deserts filled with deadly monster, no poisonous swamps, no tundra that would freeze your soul and worst of all, not even a good old lava pond to put his Overlord's Castle in.

It did have a rather nice beach. Which was fine, given that it was about the size of one of Pram's netherworld's bigger cities, and she could circle it in about five minutes, jogging lightly.

And now the brat was heading all the way back to the world that spawned him. The world that he died in. Pram wanted to watch the fireworks fly, but the old Dragon King, Babylon, needed a pair of glasses to stop crashing onto every Netherworld he came across. One of these days, he would end up pissing off one of the stronger overlords and while she hated to admit it, the old man was hilariously cranky at times and she wouldn't want to see him go before she managed to find out what the hell had robbed him of his not inconsiderable mana power.

Well, she could always have a ninja spy on him and then report to her.

She smiled again when she remembered she'd actually gotten an organized ninja corps under her apprentice's suggestion. Who knew the buggers could be so damn useful?

* * *

"Whoa. Haven't been here in forever." Naruto spoke, rubbing his chin. "Well, since I died, anyway." He added, grinning widely. "I can't even remember what this place looks like." He mused to himself. He remembered a lot of mist, which was his current environment. He assumed he was in Nami No Kuni. Why? Who the hell knows?

He certainly didn't, and neither did he care. Having spent so long around demon overlords had taught him that being insane was a good thing, so he also dismissed the first sign of insanity. He'd only begin to worry when he actually got replies.

He crouched down for a second before uncoiling his legs like a spring. Said act sent him flying through the air, easily clearing through the forest. If he was, in fact, in Nami No Kuni there was a certain house that shouldn't be too far.

Just gotta find a settlement and start asking for directions.

* * *

A small boy, of eleven years of age, lifted a sizable plank of wood with a grunt of effort. With noticeable difficulty, he carried it all the way to the pile that it had dropped from. "And that's it." He said, wiping the sweat that had collected in his forehead. His brown, coarse shirt had seen better days, definitely.

"That's super good, Inari." Said a tall man, stroking his pot belly and rubbing his goatee at once. "We just have to wait for the workers to show up."

"Okay, grandpa." Said the little boy, smiling and seating himself against the planks of wood. He wanted to get stronger, but the hard work left him exhausted most of to the time. At least this time his grandfather wouldn't force him to actually begin the process of building the damn thing. The old man took too much pleasure in abusing Inari's enthusiasm.

"Yo!" Said a rather cheerful voice, breaking the comfortable silence that had set in as Inari rested. It instantly brought the boy's world to a crashing halt. He would've recognized that voice anywhere.

"N-no way…" Inari muttered.

"Way!" Replied the cheerful voice.

Inari finally lifted his face to stare at the source of the voice. Inari's heart skipped a beat. "N-Naruto-nii?"

"Who else could I –oof!" There had been a brown blur that shot like a bullet and hit his abdomen, but that couldn't have possibly been Inari. After all, not even Pram could move that hellishly fast.

"And then I died." It was a rather funny story, the way he told it. He explained that he was outright horrible at drama and since his cheerful tone was better suited for comedy, he spun his tale in that way.

The sheer dissonance between the tone he used to say 'I Died' and the words themselves made Tazuna take a step back. "How can… why…"

"That's a secret." Naruto said, giving an almost feline grin to the old man. "And it'd take too long to explain. What I will tell you is kinda confidential, 'kay?"

"You know you can trust us." Tazuna replied, seriously.

"I can trust you, old man." Naruto said, smiling. "Now, you've noticed my ears, right?" The blond said, pointing at his knifelike left ear.

"Yeah, I was kinda gonna ask about that. They're super weird. What's up with them?"

"Well... you can safely guess that anyone who has ears like these is a demon." Naruto said, smiling. "When I died and went to hell, I spent an entire year getting my ass handed to me day and night by stronger demons, more or less. Then, an overlord, kind of like a demon king or queen, came by the underworld and chose me as her apprentice. And while I was training and becoming an Overlord myself, she had some of her agents working on finding this world. Took her two years."

"Oh. That makes sense."

Naruto smiled.

"I'll get back at you after I catch up on the super insanity of what you just told me."

* * *

Ignoring his instincts, which told him that this planet was a horrible choice to stablish his evil empire, a blond man with an incredibly thick moustache scowled and decided that he would make it his own, regardless!

* * *

Is this meant to make sense? No. It's meant to be silly. The sheer power difference between an overlord-class demon and a human ninja is ridiculous. The fact that Naruto is one of the weaker overlords around is no matter. He's still level 500 in a world where S rank shinobi are level 60 at best. For comparison, this is much like casually dropping Goku on the Ninja world. There is no real plot in the sense that there would be direct conflict, because let's face it, all Naruto needs to do to end any threat is just nuke the continent and be done with it.

There will be elements from the entire disgaeaverse from wherever I remember them, whenever I remember them.


	3. The Bangening

Sarutobi Hiruzen grunted. Him! The God Of Shinobi! The most hardcore ninja ever!

Him of all people, relegated to desk work… AGAIN! The damnable paperwork chased him everywhere! Even in death he didn't get a moment of reprieve from it! He understood that one had to work off their sins in life and that he'd accumulated a list of sins that would've made most people blush, starting by the roughly four thousand people he'd directly killed and working through the several tens of thousands he'd indirectly caused the deaths off, but this was ridiculous!

He'd much rather be in hell.

And the worst part was that he was a fucking penguin. Worse, he was a penguin with two peg legs and he had trouble holding a pen with his fins, which only made his job even harder. What's worse is the fact that he's working for free!

Again, he'd much rather be in hell, there, at least they paid him for his job. Sure, it was minimum wage that could range between 1 HL per hour to a Sardine a week, but it was still something.

Ignoring his rambling, the archangel strolled into his office. The blond little girl (whom Sarutobi was shocked to learn was about one thousand, four hundred and fifty years older than he was) had approached him about being a ninja and, like a dumbass, Hiruzen had agreed to show her the basics.

She had about as much talent for the ninja arts as a brick. Conversely, she had about as much chakra as the entirety of the village of Konoha put together, which was probably throwing off her control something fierce. That was no problem. Jiraiya had been just about as talented and look how he turned out.

No, the problem was that while Jiraiya's failures weren't all that dangerous, the Archangel's failures were catastrophic.

But he still continued to teach her, nonetheless. After all, while catastrophic, he couldn't say that her failures weren't bloody hilarious. Even the Seraph agreed on that regard. And hey, trying to teach her to become a ninja provided Sarutobi with a reprieve from paperwork.

"Ah, Miss Flonne, come for another lesson?" Asked Sarutobi in what he hoped was a kind, grandfatherly tone. The penguin suit around his soul distorted his voice somewhat.

* * *

"So, we're clear on this." Naruto asked.

"Crystal." Replied Tazuna.

"Okay, now I need you to work on building me a castle."

* * *

Leaving Tazuna to the business of creating a proper Overlord's Castle, Naruto set out to the ninja world to do a variety of epic things that would've gotten him killed if he were still human. Like popping right the fuck out of nowhere in a Konoha operation to seal the Sanbi wherein he punched the giant turtle right in the middle of the face and, for shits and giggles, decided to test how well it'd fare against one of his favorite spells.

In hindsight, using Peta Wind had been overkill of the highest regard. The poor turtle ended up splattered across three different countries.

That was when Naruto decided he'd leave magic to the skulls and witches. And magic knights. And angels. And monsters. Okay, everyone but him could use magic competently except him.

He didn't stick around long enough to gauge the responses of the people gathered around to watch the sealing of the Sanbi. He was kind of down about the fact that he hadn't been capable of controlling his spell well enough to earn a passing grade from Pram, even in his own element.

Two days later, he stopped by Kirigakure, with the intent to kill the Mizukage since Zabuza's story told him the guy was pretty much a monster.

* * *

Terumi Mei blinked. "How the hell did this happen?" She asked, rubbing her aching temples and removing a stubborn bang from her left eye. Its incessant poking had become annoying.

Naruto blinked in response. "Hell if I know."

"You're twelve!" Mei spoke, looking positively livid about said fact.

"I'm actually fifteen years old." The boy corrected.

"Still a minor!" The Mizukage didn't seem particularly enthused about said fact.

"…"

"…"

Both looked at each other, silently daring the other to speak and try to make the situation less awkward.

Ao was about to pay a visit to the Mizukage, see if she was awake and prompt her to actually show up to work. The sounds coming from the room, which sounded not unlike someone was torturing the poor bed, however, dissuaded him from even attempting contact.

She threatened to kill him daily, yes, but today, he was almost certain she'd carry out that threat if he interrupted whatever it was that she was doing.

* * *

"So you want me to go to a place I can't find to search for a weapon that I can't obtain guarded by a power I can't fathom to accomplish a destiny I can't understand." A man in a loincloth summarized.

"Pretty much, yeah." The blond man with the bushy moustache spoke.

"Okay."

* * *

Normally, Ao would've worried for the Mizukage's safety after she spent an entire day locked up in her room.

But given that she carried the brightest smile he'd ever seen in her face, he assumed it wasn't anything too bad. He just wished that his Byakugan hadn't made him privy to the fact that the Mizukage was not wearing anything underneath her robes. It was quite distracting and any moment now she would catch him discreetly weeping his bleeding nose and then he'd be six feet under before realizing what the hell was going on.

* * *

Sakura winced as she saw Tsunade stretch. For a fifty year old woman, she was pretty damn elastic. The reason she winced, however, had more to do that any time Tsunade got rid of the kinks that come from being slouched over her desk daily, it was ass kicking time. Either dodge training or Taijutsu lessons, she would suffer.

Sometimes, Sakura was certain that Tsunade was just being a vindictive bitch, taking her anger on Sakura. Then she remembered exactly why Tsunade was still pissed at her, even after three years, and was just silently thankful that the old woman had taken her in as an apprentice at all. She HAD learned a lot under her, even when Tsunade was piss-ass drunk and half assed her lessons.

It was interesting to note that Tsunade was such an insanely accomplished medic that she could perform surgery while unconscious.

"Sakura…" Tsunade trailed off.

Every muscle in the pinkette's body tensed.

"DODGE!"

* * *

Shizune laughed as she placed a bandage around a sizable bruise on Sakura's right lump of flesh that might once have been an arm. She laughed her ass off, indeed. "You think this is being harsh?" She asked, almost slapping her knee by this point. "Tsunade-sama is using blunt kunai and shuriken with you. I didn't have that luxury."

The pinkette's eyes bulged. "You can't be serious."

Shizune's face left no doubts about it, though.

* * *

Gaara had his arms crossed around his chest. "Find whoever did this, right no-"

"Hey yo Gaara, I'm real happy for you, and I'm gonna let you finish but Uzumaki Naruto is the best ninja in history, bro!"

The redhead blinked. Then looked at the top of the sand-glass mountain, where a familiar shape was sitting. The shape blurred out of sight and then appeared in front of Gaara. The same blue eyes, the same blond hair, the whisker marks… the ears were too long, though. "Who are you?"

"I'm the best ninja in history, who else!?"

* * *

Now in his office, Gaara seemed surprised. "I thought you died."

"I did." Naruto replied, smirking widely. "I died, went to hell and kicked so much ass they made me head honcho."

Gaara nodded. "That does sound like something you would do."

"So… Kazekage?" Asked Naruto.

"After your death, I felt that I had to honor you some way, and since you told me to find precious people to protect, I thought about adopting your philosophy and making the whole village my precious people."

Naruto rubbed his chin, humming in thought.

"Also, like Kankuro put it, chicks dig the title."

Naruto grinned widely.

"Okay, anyway, do you have any idea where the Kyuubi ended up after I died? It definitely didn't go to hell with me."

"Supposedly, the Kyuubi died with you…" Gaara didn't seem convinced at all by that. Neither was Naruto. Something fishy was going on that involved the Kyuubi, and since Suna wasn't aware of it, it seemed that the secret was probably something that would harm Konoha's reputation with the other four Great Villages.

There was absolutely no doubt now in Naruto's mind.

He had to find out what the hell happened to the Kyuubi after he died.


	4. The Revengening

Meanwhile, somewhere around the Country Where There's A Village Hidden In The Clouds.

"There's a staaarmaaan waiting in the sky! He'd like to come and meet us, but he thinks he'd blow our minds!"

Sasuke's left eyebrow twitched.

"There's a staaarmaaan waiting in the sky! He's told us not to blow it, 'cuz he knows it's all worthwhile!"

"Shut up." Commanded the Uchiha.

"Let the children lose it!"

"Shut. Up." This time was a bit more forceful.

"Let the children use it!"

"SHUT UP!" Yelled the incredibly angry Uchiha, turning around fully and glowering.

"Le the children boogie!" Suigetsu continued, much to Sasuke's rage.

"SHUT THE FUCK UP, GODDAMMIT!"

After checking and making damn sure that Suigetsu wouldn't randomly break into song again (Juugo promised to punch him if he did, since Juugo was a fan of whatever monster had produced that song and affirmed that Suigetsu had butchered it), Sasuke turned to Karin. "Routine check." He said.

A routine check was something that Karin had to do every time Suigetsu did something stupid that could get people on their trail. Sasuke was VERY hated by Konoha. Jiraiya of the Sannin had given Sasuke the most thorough trashing he'd ever received, which he'd survived on sheer dumb luck, namely, he'd survived only because Jiraiya didn't think Naruto would've wanted him to die, even after killing him.

Karin blinked. This was a normal occurrence. She blinked because everyone blinks, most of the time. Right now, however, she'd stopped dead on her tracks and fallen on her butt, her eyes impossibly wide. "Oh… oh god…" She muttered.

Sasuke instantly snapped to alertness. "What is it, Karin?" He pressed.

"There's a chakra signature… it's… it's huge! And it's coming this way!"

"How huge?" Asked Suigetsu, suitably excited at the prospect. He'd been pissed he hadn't gotten to fight anyone interesting yet.

"Kyuubi Huge." Karin replied. She'd only felt a single tail of power, from quite a bit of distance, once. But it was the only thing she could compare it to. Nothing ever felt quite as frightening as what she was feeling right now. She was extrapolating from the feel of that one tail what the entire thing might've felt like. "Maybe even bigger."

"Well, shit." Sasuke muttered. There was only a couple people who had chakra on par with a tailed beast. One was dead, Sasuke was sure of it, another was Kisame Hoshigaki and the other was B, the Jinchuuriki of the Hachibi, and given the sound trashing that B had given Team Taka when they'd met by chance in one of his vacation spots, they didn't want him on their tails.

"It's… Oh… God…" Karin began to enter shock. "We have to run before it catches up! We have to get away! NOW!" She snapped, grabbing Sasuke by the collar of his silk white shirt.

"No way! I run from no one!" Yelled the angry Suigetsu. He was really pissed that he never got to fight anyone important. It was his second peeve, the first being that Sasuke was delaying him from finding the swords of the swordsmen, which was his real objective.

"Maybe we should. I have a bad feeling." Juugo said, looking at the frightened Karin. "I have never seen her like this."

Sasuke shrugged. "She was scared of a bear that I killed when I was a Genin." He said, cracking his neck. "Whatever it is, we'll take it on and win, no problem."

"There's more… There are two of them… No… three. There are three immense chakras heading our way. All three of them feel… I don't know how to say it… they feel demonic." Karin commented. "They're almost here! Please, Sasuke, we've got to run!"

"Yanno, by this point it's kind of pointless." Suigetsu said, sounding not really all that displeased at all, which further incensed Karin and she finally figured out that yeah, Suigetsu might be nuts, but it was her entire group that was nuts.

"What, why?" She asked, turning around, feeling her voice die in her throat as she saw a gigantic… tree… human… thing with green, pupil-less eyes. Next to it was a little girl in a miko outfit that seemed to be a size too big, hiding her hands from view behind the sleeves. Her very light cyan, almost white, hair was gathered into a spiky ponytail.

Karin could admit that she never would've expected danger for her were it not for the obviously evil blade she held behind her back. How did she know it was evil? Well, there was black lightning circling around it, it was black and had sinister spikes lining the guard, and well, to Karin's chakra sense the damnable thing felt like someone was jabbing a needle in her third eye.

The giant made of wood roared and smashed its long forelimbs into the ground. It kind of looked like a huge wooden gorilla.

"Now, calm down, Woody." Said a rather cheerful voice.

"But My Lord, those people are-" the wooden gorilla's thundering voice assaulted Team Taka's ears.

"Yeah, yeah, I know who they are, Woody." Said the voice again. Just then, a child, even smaller than the miko swordsgirl, with the most gorgeous shade of blond hair that Karin had ever seen. His aura was the outright worst of the lot. If the other two were similar to a tailed beast, his was… his was in a whole other level entirely.

There was no doubt in Karin's mind that the other two, despite being bigger, seemingly older and stronger, were the small blond's subordinates. He had such gorgeous blue eyes, too… it was odd to see such beautiful eyes on someone who oozed the same abject vileness that the blond did.

"Can I kill them yet?" The miko asked, looking at the boy.

"No."

"Aww… you never let me have any fun!" the swordsgirl whined, pouting and looking not unlike a child who'd just had her favorite toy taken away.

The blond sighed. "Anyway… I guess you're surprised, seeing me here, huh Sasuke?"

Karin felt her breath's refusal to come out of her throat. This boy, this monster, knew who Sasuke was. And from Sasuke's reaction, that shocked gasp, Sasuke knew him as well.

"Na… Naruto?"

"Bingo!" Said the blond, now identified as Naruto.

"But… how… I…"

"Killed me?" Naruto asked, his tone with a mocking quality to it. "That you did, jerkwad, that you did." The blond said, grinning widely. "But, as they say, what kills you, makes you stronger."

The wooden giant looked at its lord. "Uhm… that's not how the quote goes…"

The blond merely handwaved his concern away. "Anyway, now you're wondering: what's my resurrected teammate doing here?" mocked the blond. "Well, while you can only think about revenge, I have other things in my mind, but I am nice enough to drop by and say hi." Said the blond, offering the gathered Team Taka a winning smile. "I'm still going to beat the everloving crap out of you, but it's nothing personal."

Sasuke blinked. "This must be a hallucination."

* * *

Suigetsu swore under his breath. That girl… that girl was fucking terrifying. He'd thought that the seven swordsmen of the mist were as good as it got with Kenjutsu, the ultimate masters… but they weren't. No, hell no. This girl could probably take all seven of them on without even breaking a sweat!

Okay, maybe he was exaggerating, since he was a tad ticked off that she was so much better than him.

"You're boring! Naruto-sama never lets me fight anyone cool! All I ever get is the chumps!" She said, sniffing indignantly.

"It's not my fault you bitch, I'm a swordsman, I can't do much if I don't have the appropriate tools, and, if you hadn't noticed yet, I'm not carrying a sword on me right now!" Suigetsu snapped, narrowing his eyes in annoyance.

"Any swordsman worth his salt carries his sword everywhere! What kind of swordsman are you if you are without a blade?" She questioned.

"YOU JUST SLICED MY SWORD IN HALF YOU CRAZY BITCH!"

The girl blinked. "Ah. Sorry. Couldn't tell, since that thing was so pitiful. I mean, have you even leveled up the damn thing? It's a level 0 item!"

"Level 0? It was a fucking legendary sword!"

"It's rank is meaningless if you don't level it up!"

Suigetsu was mystified as to what the hell she meant.

* * *

Karin began to rock back and forth. "It isn't possible… nobody can have that much chakra… it isn't possible…"

* * *

"My name is Woody. It is a pleasure to meet you." Woody said, offering his hand.

"Juugo, likewise." Replied Juugo, shaking it firmly.

"I just wanted to say that it's nothing personal, just a demon doing what a demon is."

"I understand. Please don't take it personally if I start yelling obscenities and death threats."

"Let's have a fun bout."

"Agreed."

There was a moment of silence between them, as well as the heavy sound of two giants hitting the floor, separated only by a short distance and a sizable crater.

"I'LL PUNCH YOU IN THE FUCKING SOUL!"

They jumped again, this time crashing into each other and beginning a struggle for dominance.

* * *

"So… You're alive." Sasuke began.

"Back from the dead." Naruto confirmed.

"You must be a hallucination brought on by Karin in an attempt to keep me unconscious long enough to rape me." Sasuke said, nodding to himself. "It won't work! You won't defeat me!"

Naruto smacked his forehead. "You're still running on Insane Troll Logic?"

"I don't even know what that is!" Sasuke snapped.

* * *

"Ah… so that's how you make your weapon so strong…" Suigetsu said, nodding and rubbing his chin. "But isn't it dangerous?"

"Most of the time, yeah. But it's one of the few times when Master lets me cut loose so it's okay!" The swordsgirl chirped.

"Where can I find an item worlder, then?"

"Any netherworld worth its salt has at least a dozen of those. Since Master intends to move his Netherworld here, we'll place a few here soon."

"That does sound tempting…"

"Anyway, since you don't have a proper weapon to make this fight interesting, I'm gonna lend you one from my personal collection! Don't lose it, though. Took long enough to steal it from its owner the first time around."

She stuck a hand inside her wide sleeve and, in a move that caused Suigetsu's eyes to bulge out of his skull, pulled a blade as long as she was tall from the confines of her sleeve. Talk about deep pockets. The blade was long, straight, double edged and as black as the darkest onyx. "Ah, here it is, the Onyx Blade! Very high level stuff."

* * *

The moment Suigetsu's hands touched the blade's handle, however, he blacked out and awoke to find himself staring up at the form of a woman who some would've called childishly cute. Suigetsu was more worried about the terrifying smirk in her face, though.

"W-Who are you?" Asked the terrified Hozuki.

"My name is Revya. I am the Devourlord. Pleased to meet you."

Suigetsu's screams of both pain and anguish were soon replaced by mad cackling.

* * *

Back in the real world… "Woah. That bitch was kinky." Suigetsu informed the swordsgirl. "… I kind of wanna do that again, now."

"No time for that! That thing should have enough stat boosts on it to get you on par with me, for a while at least! Come on, brat, gimme a good fight!"

"Brat!? I'm older than you!" Suigetsu raged.

"I'm two thousand and twelve years old!"

"Okay, maybe I'm not older than you…"


	5. The Returgening

"You're not gonna win, Sasuke, you know this." Said Naruto, rubbing the back of his neck and cracking it in a threatening matter.

"Please Dobe, I can defeat you with my hands tied behind my back." Sasuke mentioned, setting himself on the stance most characteristic of Orochimaru. Meaning, just sort of standing there looking mockingly bored. "What makes you think you can win this time?"

"Well I'm glad you asked!"

Sasuke waited for Naruto to continue. Then gestured for him to do so.

"Because I'm not gonna answer!" Naruto finally said, grinning widely. "You're gonna call bullshit on it anyway."

Sasuke shrugged. "True enough."

"Anyway, I'm here to beat the everloving crap out of you and bring you, kicking and screaming, all the way to Konoha, whether you like it or not! I told Sakura I wouldn't set foot in Konoha unless I brought you with me, and I promised Baa-chan that it'd take her seat from under her. I'm gonna do both at once!"

"You won't bring me back! Konoha made me weak, Konoha held me back because they feared my power!"

Naruto laughed out loud. "Tell me, moron… back when we were a team… who did Kakashi train? Tell me." He ordered, folding his arms over his chest, his black cloak whipping around due to the shockwaves generated by the other two fights going on.

"Kakashi only taught us team exercises!" Sasuke spoke. "And tree climbing." He added as an afterthought.

Naruto blinked. "Okay, I've been overlord for six months or so and even I can't really figure out what the hell jiji was thinking. He made up a team that could not possibly work together and told Kakashi to make it so we could. Then again, back then, I would've sucked in any team."

Naruto seemed to be on a roll now, though.

"How the hell did we even survive the Chunin Exams? We SUCKED. We could barely work together before you got the curse seal and after you got it our teamwork, or whatever passed for it, was shot to hell. I beat Kiba on sheer luck. If I hadn't farted at the most convenient time possible he'd have pounded my ass! Sakura was bloody useless! Seriously, you're the only one that had a chance in hell of passing the exams. Come to think of it, Kakashi only ever taught you anything. He never taught me or Sakura jack shit, we had to figure out how to walk on trees on our own!"

Naruto folded his arms over his chest. "That's it, when I get to Konoha, I'll beat the everloving shit out of Kakashi! He was an asshole." He growled out.

Sasuke had stopped paying attention at some point, activated the second level of the curse seal, made a black Chidori, and rushed forward…

There was a noticeable crack of lightning and Sasuke's hand pierced through the air where Naruto'd been two seconds ago. "Stay still and I will kill you."

"Shouldn't you say 'Or I'll kill you'?" Asked Naruto, tilting his head.

"I know what I said!" Sasuke roared, blurring out of sight.

After several minutes of Naruto continuing to rant to Sasuke's ever growing anger, Sasuke finally managed to hit Naruto with a piercing attack, stabbing a Kunai into Naruto's chest. "Woah. Okay then, time to kick your ass."

Sasuke twisted around, to deliver another attack, only to receive a punch to the middle of the face, just short of braking his nose in strength.

"Augh, dammit! I'll kill you!" Sasuke rushed forward and was about to rip Naruto's jugular vein.

Only to receive another punch to the face.

"Stop doing that!" Yelled Sasuke, blazing through the handseals for a Jutsu. Just as he was about to release a huge fireball, though, he received another punch to the face. "Goddammit! I swear I'll ki-"

"One would think that he would dodge at some point." Naruto muttered, rubbing his knuckles as he watched Sasuke fall to the ground, unconscious.

"I won't let you kill him!" Karin yelled, jumping towards him.

Naruto blinked, sidestepped her desperate leap and caught her by the hair, swinging her around and putting a hand on her back. Reflexes trained from long sessions which involved dealing with hordes upon hordes of demons had taught him to deal promptly with them, but he stilled his hand before snapping her neck. "I wasn't going to kill him. I said I'd drag his sorry ass to Konoha."

"And what do you think will happen once he sets foot there!?" Karin snarled, trying her darnedest to wiggle out of his grip.

"That's up to Baa-chan." Naruto said, grinning. "But if it makes you feel better, I promise I won't let anything happen to him in Konoha."

Karin growled. "And why would I believe you?"

"Uzumaki Naruto never breaks a promise, 'ttebayo!"

"U… Uzumaki?" Karin asked, raising one eyebrow. "That's bullshit. You can't be an Uzumaki. You're blond! All members of the Uzumaki clan are redheads!"

"Meh." Naruto said, shrugging. "I wouldn't know. I didn't even know there was an Uzumaki clan to begin with."

"You bear our symbol and you don't even know who we are?" Karin yelled.

"What symbol?"

"The spiral is the symbol of the Uzumaki, you idiot! It was the symbol of our village, Uzushio, before it was destroyed because we were too badass to be allowed to live." Karin explained.

"You know, that does sound like a clan I'd like to have known. Kinda sucks I'll never get to meet any- wait, you said 'our symbol'?" Naruto's voice turned clearly shocked by the end of his sentence.

"Yes, I am Uzumaki Karin! Well, I technically wasn't an Uzumaki, since I legally have my father's surname, but that's beside the point!" Karin said, trying to reach for his wrist.

"Then we're family?"

Naruto grinned.

It was not a nice grin.

* * *

Suigetsu cursed. The sword he was holding in his hand was becoming steadily more painful to hold. It was clear that Revya, the spirit within the sword, didn't like him a bit and was even now making her displeasure with him known.

He would be a bitch before he let the sword dominate him, and Revya wanted to be the dominant one in their relationship. HE was the master of all seven swords, not the other way around!

Sure, the thing was powerful. Ludicrously so. It was probably as close to indestructible as things got, and merely holding it made him strong and fast enough to keep pace with a girl who he could hardly see move before. The problem lied on the fact that he wasn't used to the incredible speed difference.

He was actually certain she was still toying with him. After all, the few named attacks she'd dropped were almost completely impossible to follow and all devastatingly powerful. He was just lucky that he was skilled enough that he could see where they'd hit and block accordingly.

He dodged several incredibly fast slashes and cursed again, leaping back when she stopped giving chase long enough to sheath her weapon. "Okay, it's been fun, but Lord Naruto said I had to keep enough Mana for another fight just in case so..."

The blade sliced through the air so fast that there wasn't even a gale left behind like the majority of her slashes. There was a thin red line running across Suigetsu's throat, and he fell to the ground, landing on his ass. That. That was the power of one of the best swordsmen in the planet. Of a demon swordsman. That was the power that one could have when wielding a truly powerful blade.

"Keep the Onyx Blade. Maybe you'll be better with it next time!" She chirped, sounding entirely too cheerful for his taste.

Meanwhile, Woody grunted, landing a devastating punch on Juugo's stomach that sent him flying upwards… only for the heavily transformed giant to sprout boosters from his back and, in a gravity aided drop, land a just as powerful elbow on the wood golem's head.

The golem cratered the floor when its chin hit the ground. However, when it stuck its hand in the ground, the previously clear farmland soil quickly gave way to the form of a rather large oak that was quickly grabbed by the wood golem and uprooted entirely.

"I'LL EAT YOUR WOODEN KIDNEYS!" Yelled the crazed Juugo, charging forward, hands morphed into a wicked looking axe…

… Only to get summarily batted away.

"That's not how you threaten someone." The golem informed. "This, is how you threaten someone." The golem hit its chest with its fist and cleared its throat. "IMMA RAPE YA BITCH!"

Juugo charged again…

… And got a tree planted in his head. "There, he's out. You happy now?" The golem grumbled.

"Always!" The ever cheerful swordsgirl informed, appearing on the large wooden giant's shoulder. "Let's head to where the master is facing the emo! I wanna see if he spanks him!"

"That's not a mental image I needed, thank you."

* * *

Terumi Mei sighed. "Okay, now I just have to retrace my steps. How DID I end up in bed with a twelve year old boy?" She asked aloud. Then her feet hit something underneath her desk. "Oh, that."

There was a sealing scroll underneath her desk. Inside that scroll was her storage of sake for those days in which she really wanted to go out, bring Yagura back to life and kill him again. Since she didn't know Edo Tensei and didn't have any particular interest in learning it, she had to work with what she had. Namely, lots and lots of alcohol.

"Doesn't explain where the hell the kid came from." She mumbled to herself.

* * *

_What Mei doesn't remember… Or doesn't actually WANT to remember…_

"_HALT, FOUL BEAST! I, the Hero Of Justice, Uzumaki Naruto, have come to end your reign of blood and terror!" Cried a cheerful, mocking voice._

"… _I've been called many things, but never foul beast." Mei said in clear surprise. "Okay, what brings someone who is obviously not from my village to my office? You have about twenty seconds to answer before I melt you on the spot."_

"_Twenty seconds ain't enough, lady! Also, where's the Mizukage? I've heard he's a real Douchebag, so I came to kill him!"_

"_Lots of people wanted to kill him, boy. Believe me, you're just one more in a long list. And yes, he was a real Douchebag."_

"_Then where is he? I will show him not to be a villain!"_

_Mei giggled the kid was so adorable it had to be a crime. "He's kind of dead."_

"_Oh. Then I'm late. Okay, now I have nothing to do here. Hey, pretty lady, do you know anything fun to do?"_

_Somehow, they'd ended up playing the Stephen King Drinking Game from that. It's a miracle Mei didn't die of alcohol poisoning that night._

_Luckily for him, Naruto just has too much health for 3-rounds poison to be threatening at all._

* * *

"So, you're a demon. Can you tell me if god exists, then?" Karin asked._  
_

"Yes, God exists and He got his ass beat by an overlord a few years ago." Naruto replied, nodding.


	6. The Threatengening

Sasuke was in hell. He was certain. Naruto, the guy who'd ruined his life, was there, so it was most likely Sasuke's own personal hell. First, he got his ass kicked by the Naruto doppelganger. He punched like a freight train on steroids.

Then, he got tied up and had to endure listening to a lecture upon the traits present in the Uzumaki clan. Who'd thought that the moron had a clan?

But now, now was the worst. The Naruto doppelganger COULD have had his giant ass wooden golem swing Sasuke over its shoulder to carry him, but no, all he'd done was tie a long rope to his ankles and drag him like he were a sack of potatoes! Didn't he know who Sasuke was? He was the last Uchiha, for fuck's sake!

Karin had turned on him. Apparently, once the samurai miko girl had explained how her 'love' was childish infatuation, and more importantly, childish infatuation on an asshole to whom she wasn't anything more than a useful tool to be discarded, she had expressed disbelief and all kinds of denial.

Several slaps later, and a deconstruction of said childish infatuation eventually led Karin to accept that yeah, Sasuke is an ass and not worthy of her love.

Suigetsu, meanwhile, had been given one of the most powerful swords EVER by a random stranger for the sake of enjoying a good fight. In his mind, the demons were completely okay.

Juugo's psychotic crazy self somehow became pals with the wooden golem. This one was the one Sasuke could believe least of them all. Also, Juugo had a tree planted on his head. Apparently, it was sucking the Natural Chakra out of his brain and keeping him sane. This was actually sort of funny, Sasuke admitted, since Juugo had looked at himself in a lake and decided he needed a little trim on the treetop.

Karin could never quite get the image of the tentacle scissors out of her head.

Normally, Sasuke wouldn't complain about something like this. He'd endured much worse under Orochimaru. No, the problem lied on what they were using to psychologically torture him.

"Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love."

Sasuke was in hell because somehow, Suigetsu had begun to sing again.

"There's nothing you can do that can't be done."

Let it be said that though Suigetsu sings horribly off key, the Naruto doppelganger is probably worse.

"Nothing you can sing that can't be sung."

Sasuke scoffed at the line. Evidently, they couldn't sing at all."

"Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game, it's easy."

Bullshit it is. Last time Sasuke tried to learn how to play a game he ended up losing horribly to Shikamaru in Shogi.

Unknown to him, as he was staring at the blindfold in his head, this had caught the attention of the others.

"There's nothing you can make that can't be made."

"MMMPH! NNPH!" Trashed impotently the Uchiha, as multiple voices joined the sound drilling into his brains.

"No one you can save that can't be saved."

Mentally, Naruto gave it a silent Amen.

"Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time - It's easy."

Finally, a reprieve from his torture! Sasuke enjoyed the few seconds of silence.

"All you need is love, all you need is love,  
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.  
Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.  
All you need is love, all you need is love,  
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.  
There's nothing you can know that isn't known.  
Nothing you can see that isn't shown.  
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.  
It's easy.  
All you need is love, all you need is love,  
All you need is love, love, love is all you need.  
All you need is love (all together now)  
All you need is love (everybody)  
All you need is love, love, love is all you need."

Itachi blinked and raised his head, startling Kisame. Itachi NEVER did sudden movements. "I… think I just heard Sasuke begging me to come and kill him." He said, looking and sounding surprised.

* * *

"So… do you wanna learn magic? I'm terrible at it, but I know enough about it to teach a beginner." Naruto said.

Karin raised one eyebrow. "Magic?"

"Yeah, it's sort of like jutsu, but these get more powerful every time you use them, and there are only a few spells everyone can do. Most people have to design their own." Naruto explained. "I never got good enough to design my own magic or use freestyle like my master, Pram, does. The way she said it, freestyle magic is basically applying your mana power to the universe, bending it over and having your way with it."

"That sounds badass."

Naruto nodded. "Pram is very good at it. She could probably freeze this planet over without that much effort. Then again, by that point it'd be easier to just blow it up…"

This brought the good cheer crashing down. "You're shitting me." Suigetsu said, narrowing his eyes. "Nobody can destroy a planet easily!"

Naruto laughed and raised his right hand. "Both of my vassals here are at the power level of the standard overlord. I kick that much ass." Naruto informed the members of Team Taka. "I am about five times as strong as either of them." He added.

"That isn't fair, our stats increase yours!" The swordsgirl informed, from her perch atop the giant's shoulder.

"You should be thankful that you can contribute to our lord's power!" The wooden giant grumbled.

"It's not significant, and even without that, there are still four hundred levels of difference." Naruto said, looking positively deadpan. "Don't make me spank you!"

The swordsgirl blushed and gave him a perverted smirk.

* * *

"Okay, now that that's taken care of, where were we?"

"You just took several hours to do… that… and I heard… I heard everything…" Suigetsu walked up to him and fell on his knees, groveling and chanting "NOT WORTHY!"

Karin scoffed.

"I think she needs to be spanked too, Master!"

Karin shook her head vehemently and gestured with her arms her displeasure at the notion. "Oh, hell no!" She yelled.

Naruto smirked.

But then, the gigantic walls of Konoha were in sight. Well, in demon sight. They could see much better in the darkness and at a much larger distance.

Karin sighed in relief. "Saved by the bell…" She muttered.

"We're camping here!" Naruto announced. "I haven't gone on a camping trip since forever! Actually, I've never been on a camping trip, period!"

Suigetsu smirked. "I have!"

"How did we get to Konoha in under a day?" Karin asked. "We weren't running." She added.

Naruto handwaved her concerns. "We're just that cool." He explained.

"This is going too slow." Muttered the swordsgirl.

They were not trying to be stealthy, so their camp had a sizable bonfire. Karin stood up. "I'm going to go hunt something. The sheer insanity of our situation just hit me." She said, turning around and starting to walk into the forests of Konoha.

"Oh, I want to take a walk, I'll go with you!" the cyan haired girl chirped, standing up. She left the sword she carried everywhere behind her and dashed behind Karin.

* * *

"You've killed three fourths of everything we've come across, we've already got enough! We don't need to hunt anymore!" Karin complained. "You're cutting through trees with your fingernails. How the hell do you even do that?"

"I'm not hunting, I'm just taking a walk!" The swordsgirl explained. "And my nails are tougher than their bones, it's that simple."

"THIS is a walk?" Karin said, sounding entirely shocked.

"I could make a joke about Hellsing Abridged, but you wouldn't get it." She said, sighing. "Anyway… You are my lord's family, so I thought I could explain to you what this entails." She said, dropping all hints of flippant cheerfulness. "My Lord has too big a heart for his own good. I should know, he created me from his own mana."

"What does this have to do with anything?" Karin asked.

"My Lord trusts easily. I don't." She said, cornering Karin against a tree. "Even after having known you for very little time, he already thinks of you as family. I will just give you a friendly warning." She said, smiling with a smile that sent chills down Karin's spine.

Karin blanched at the killing intent that washed through her. She could feel several chakra signatures outright stop. She didn't want them to. She wanted to focus on something other than the terrifying presence right next to hers. Karin fell on her butt, but a hand wrapped around her neck and lifted her. "I-I-I…" Karin stammered, before the hand tightened.

"You will shut up and listen to me." Karin immediately silenced herself. "And you will listen well, because I won't repeat myself. My lord may take his pain as a joke, but we don't. He might forgive and forget, but we don't."

Karin squirmed under the smaller girl's grip.

"If you hurt my lord… Not even death will save you from our wrath. We will hunt you down. We will find you. We will exact revenge."

* * *

"I wonder what they're doing…" Suigetsu muttered. "What could possibly take them that long? Karin can find anything easily."

Naruto seemed like he was about to say something, but then he flushed and shook his head. "It can't be that…" He muttered.

"What? Speak man!" Suigetsu said, narrowing his eyes.

"Well…"

"Don't tell me… she goes both ways?"

"Most demons do…"

"I fear for Lady Karin's virginity." The wooden giant spoke solemnly.

Suigetsu's nose exploded in a shower of blood.

* * *

HAPPY FUCKING NEW YEAR.


	7. The Bangening 2, Electric Boogaloo

The assembled Konoha Ten (Used to be twelve, but one went rogue and killed one of them), who would soon become the most influential nin in the village due to their positions and talent, were not usually called all at the same time. They were all somewhat friendly with each other and worked relatively well as a group, but nothing precisely legendary that could help in making a statement about Konoha's teamwork. "What would require all ten of us to deal with? Aren't there better qualified people to do this?" Shikamaru questioned.

Tsunade looked positively bemused. "There's a chakra signature roughly comparable to the Kyuubi on steroids coming our way." She informed. "There doesn't seem to be a distant red sun on the horizon so it's not the Kyuubi. Whatever this thing is, there's the slightest chance that it's not hostile."

"Which means that it most likely IS hostile." Shikamaru, the unofficial leader spoke. He was by far the smartest, so nobody questioned his judgment on this one. "And you want us to deal with it. Not to offend my teammates, but we seriously won't come out the winners if this thing has power comparable to a tailed beast."

"Just because someone has all that chakra doesn't mean they know how to use it. For instance, Jiraiya has just about three times as much chakra as I have and I can kick his ass." Tsunade informed. "Then again, comparing Jiraiya's reserves to that thing's is like comparing a light bulb to the sun." She said, shrugging. "Oh, well. This is A rank, by the way. If it turns out to be hostile, you have my permission to fuck everything and run for your lives, if you can take whoever or whatever it is, try to capture it. For the record, your teachers and Jiraiya will be going with you."

"I'm sorry I'm late, I was lost on the road of li- Wha?" Kakashi seemed entirely perplexed to find himself in a room full of the people he still couldn't help himself to refer to as 'kids'. And Tsunade.

"As you might have noticed, Kakashi, I'm already aware of your habits and called you two hours early. I didn't think you'd actually show up at the time I told you to." Tsunade admitted, looking sheepish. "Anyway, dismissed. Kakashi, you stay, I need someone to punch for comedy value right now and you fit the bill just right."

Kakashi gulped.

* * *

"To put it in perspective, I don't think we stand a chance in hell against that thing." Jiraiya stated, grimly. "Tsunade thinks we do. She seriously thinks we can take this thing. Personally, I think we're screwed if it turns out to be hostile, but I guess we're the only ones who stand a chance of surviving."

Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

"We're all important. Not only in terms of our strength, but also in terms of our political weight. I've been following this thing for a while. As far as I can gather, it has been in Kiri and Nami before, and went to the land of lightning but stopped just short of reaching Kumo's general location before turning around and heading straight for Konoha. It's also making pretty damn good time. We should be happy it stopped for the night." Jiraiya said, sighing. "Whoever it is, and it's most certainly a man, has done something that should have every man bowing in respect." The Toad Sage intoned in a solemn tone.

"Now I'm curious." Kurenai admitted.

"Yeah, so am I." Asuma supplied.

"I am always open to hear about someone who can impress you, Jiraiya-sama." Kakashi said, clear fanboyism over his favorite writer visible.

"Yes, what has gotten your fires of youth burning so brightly?" Gai asked in his usual exuberant tone.

"This man… According to the spies I have planted in Kiri… Boinked the Mizukage."

"THAT's all?" Kurenai yelled, shocked that something like that would make Jiraiya so impressed.

"You should consider, Kurenai-chan, that this is not just anyone I'm talking about. The woman I'm talking about routinely threatens her right hand man with death every time he so much as implies she needs to get laid. She has also reacted to any and all advances from most suitors with the most impressive burns I have ever seen, both figurative and literal." Asuma spoke, rubbing his beard. "Whoever approaches her needs have both balls and charms aplenty. Kind of like Mom, actually."

"Yes, Biwako sure was something fierce." Jiraiya said, sagely.

Kakashi scoffed. "Bitch please." He said, handwaving that. "I have heard something even more impressive."

Gai nodded. "I was there when my eternal rival heard it, and even I, myself, can't believe someone could be that youthful." The spandex clad man spoke, looking down to the floor. "It just further inspires me to work ever harder!"

"What?" Jiraiya asked. What could possibly be so shocking that it would've impressed Gai of all people?

"I thought it was a rumor at first… but it appears that our target is the first man to have ever defeated the Stephen King Drinking Game." There was a collection of gasps. "And you know, as they say, only a handful of people have survived, let alone beat it."

Asuma chuckled boisterously. "I know of only two people who have survived it."

"So do I." Jiraiya said.

"And me." Gai added. "I know only of Kurenai and Tsunade-sama. May the youthful fire burn the alcohol in your systems."

Kurenai shivered. "It never stopped… one after another… cliché storms…" She mumbled, hugging herself, rubbing her arms as she did. She relaxed in Asuma's embrace, moments after.

"You're a survivor, girl." Jiraiya said, patting her head.

Then she smirked. "On the flipside, that's what inspired most of my more… eccentric Genjutsu. The one with the bear blowjob? That's totally from The Shinning." She admitted shamelessly.

Jiraiya shivered. He'd been on the receiving end of her more cruel genjutsu before, and suffice to say, they were not pretty.

"Then again, that's one I've got over Anko. She always ends up unconscious halfway through her attempts. That is, if I don't knock her out when she gets grabby."

"No way." Kakashi said. "I can't believe Anko really swings that way. Have you seen her? She basically flirts with everyone with a penis in Konoha!" He said, clear shock written across his one visible eye.

Kurenai scoffed. "Bitch please." She repeated Kakashi's earlier quip. "Anko only acts like a slut because she wants attention. And because I don't swing that way. She's been after me since the academy, and we weren't even in the same class!" She said indignantly. Then she blinked. "There was also her crush on Minato-sama…"

Gai chuckled. "Having a crush on Minato-sama does not count towards your sexuality, Kurenai. You should know this. The man's fires of youth burned so brightly that nobody could help being impressed!"

"I do have to admit that sensei was unbelievably handsome." Kakashi admitted, rubbing his chin. "Kushina-nee was lucky to have nabbed him when she could. He always loved the color of her hair…"

Asuma snickered. "Was that why you dyed it red once, Kurenai?" Asked the bearded man, sounding not all that amused.

"I was like nine, cut me a break!" She snarled, huffing and turning her head away, a luminescent blush on her face.

"Yes, you were nine and a year away from Genin." Asuma spoke. "You really should've known he wouldn't go for a nine year old girl…"

Kakashi actually laughed. "Actually, apparently, he fell in love with Kushina when they were like eight years old, so nobody, ever, stood a chance against her. The only way anyone would have is if Kushina-nee had broken his heart."

"Didn't prevent his many fangirls from trying…" Jiraiya said, snickering.

Kakashi then blinked. "What were we talking about, again? I think we were discussing something actually important." The silver haired jounin spoke.

"We probably shouldn't look too deeply into this. The mission starts in two hours. Be ready. And… if you have anyone to say goodbye to, it might be a good idea to. After all, we're not sure we're gonna come back from this one… If you haven't gotten laid yet, now is the time." Jiraiya grimly informed them.

* * *

"BEGONE, EVIL SPIRIT! I AM THE WIELDER OF THE SACRED FLAME OF KAGUTSUCHI, YOU, WIELDER OF THE DARK FLAME OF YAMI, WILL SUBMIT TO MY WILL!"

"Never, you pathetic human! I shall never be defeated! I was able to defeat your mother! What makes you think that you stand a chance, novice priestess!"

"My mother was weak willed! She could not bear the cost that banishing you meant! You, soulless entity, will face my full power with no restraints! Even if the cost of stopping your evil is my body, then I will pay it with gusto!"

"No! I won't be defeated! I won't be sealed again! Priestess, prepare for the most grueling fight of you-"

Add in the sound of someone doing the usual 'scratch the disk' thing for comedic effect here.

"What. The Fuck." Mumbled one of the guards.

"I don't know whether it's the hottest thing I've ever seen or the most disturbing. Is Shion-sama having sex? I thought priestesses were supposed to remain virginal." Replied his partner. Guard shifts were in groups of two just in case they weren't as good at their jobs as they should be.

"The question is, why is her loving roleplaying as a demon?" The first one asked.

"Fuck if I know, man. Maybe it turns him on?"

"Dude, it's Shion-sama in a priestess outfit that's three sizes too tiny for her. If she didn't turn you on, then I'd be worried."

"True dat."

* * *

"When the hell did you get time to do that?" Asked Suigetsu. "You've been here all night!"

Naruto smirked. "I would explain to you how I pulled it off, but if I did, your brain would eat itself from the sheer awesomeness of my tactical prowess."

Karin blinked. "Is he like this all the time?" She asked the wooden giant.

"No. Usually Lord Naruto strings people around and dangles the explanation in front of their faces for twenty minutes before telling them and watching their brains eat themselves if they're too insistent." Woody the wood golem explained.

"Wait, that wasn't a joke?" Suigetsu said, entirely shocked.

"I'm not kidding when I tell you I know things that would literally blow your mind." Said Naruto. "Who knows, maybe when you're ready, I will teach you some of them. But what I can tell you is that yes, I can teleport."

Karin blinked. "Then why didn't we teleport all the way to Konoha?"

Naruto smiled widely. "Who says we didn't? How do you think we made it here so fast? We were teleporting short distances while you guys were distracted."

Juugo smiled and looked at Karin and Suigetsu. "I'm pretty much high off my ass and even I figured out that much."

"High?" Suigetsu asked.

"Yeah… This tree… is a Marihuana tree." Juugo said, pointing at the bonsai tree growing on top of his head.

"But… those don't exist…"

"It's a demon thing." Woody spoke. "I can't make a marihuana plant, since all I control is trees. So I made a tree whose leaves have pretty much the same properties as Marihuana."

"So that whole bit about it sucking his nature chakra away was bullshit, then. He's just high." Suigetsu said, nodding to himself. "That explains why he seemed so surprised to see his own hands earlier today."

"Or why he's so mellow."

"Pot solves everyone's problems." Woody said, a sagely tone to his voice. However, then he turned towards the fourth wall and seemed to take a far more serious instance. "Medicinal Marihuana is not something to joke about and is indeed quite a serious and real thing. Smoking it for recreational purposes is, in the opinion of our writer, entirely okay so long as you don't hurt anyone or force it on anyone. Several of his friends are, in fact, stoners. Now, as part of this public service announcement from Hell, I'd like to point out that there's nothing quite as hilarious as watching your friends become entirely mystified by the most basic processes. Like how to operate a simple faucet."

Suigetsu blinked. "The fuck was that?" He asked, looking perplexed.

* * *

The man in the loincloth roared. "YOU TOOK MY FATHER'S SWORD, WOOOORGH!" he yelled, roaring to the four winds as he faced off against the greatest samurai in the Land of Iron, Mifune.

"Sir! We can't hit him with our arrows! They seem to veer off course when they get near him!"

The great head of the samurai Namakubi narrowed his eyes. "Bring James Earl Jones here! He is our only hope against this invincible titan! My fire elemental mind bullets aren't doing anything to him!"

A man covered from head to toe in black nodded. He looked not unlike a giant black dildo, what with the oddly shaped helmet on his head. With a deep and grave voice, he announced his intent and somehow managed to fire a snake from a bow at him. However, he only hit the loin-cloth wearing man's girlfriend. Nonetheless, this caused him to retire.

"Why did you fire a snake? We know for a fact you have stronger weapons!"

"Steel isn't strong. Flesh is stronger. This... This is power!" with that, he pointed his palm at a female samurai standing on a higher platform, said "Come to me my child" and watched as the girl plummeted to her death. "Okay... I didn't think she'd be that dumb..." He admitted.

Namakubi would have facepalmed if he wasn't a giant head that has no hands.


	8. The Hangening

"Should we go to sleep?" Karin asked. "I mean, I'm a bit tired from walking all day…"

"Everything interesting happens after bedtime. That's a known fact." Suigetsu countered. "Right, Juugo?" he asked, turning to the giant with a tree growing out of his head.

Juugo, however, seemed to be staring in terror at the far distance. He even raised a hand to point at where he was looking and tried his hardest to back away until he could crawl away no more, since there was a tree blocking his path.

"What!? What is it!?" Karin yelled, worried.

"There's… there's…"

Suigetsu's hand reached for the onyx blade and with a grunt he lifted it, ignoring the sting that began to run throughout his body. Bitch still didn't like him. No matter. He instantly turned to face the direction Juugo was pointing from. "What's there!?"

"THERE'S AN ARMY OF MAGICAL FLYING PONIES COMING TO KILL US ALL AND A PURPLE DINOSAUR RIDING A WEASEL!" Juugo yelled, before falling to the floor, snoring loudly.

Suigetsu and Karin felt their jaws unhinge and hit the floor.

"Could that have been any more random?" Woody the Wood Golem asked, scratching the top of his head. "I might not have recreated the effects of cannabis as well as I thought I had… This is definitely not what happens when you're high." He explained.

Karin sighed. "And here I was, thinking we were fucked. Anything that can scare Juugo must be terrifying…" She whined, falling to the floor and relaxing.

"Or exciting!" Suigetsu said, a smirk on his face.

Naruto shivered. "No, I've met the Pony Army before. And trust me, it's fucking terrifying." He said.

"There's seriously a pony army?" Asked Suigetsu, looking like he wanted to call bullshit loudly.

"Yes." Naruto said, fully serious as he did. "And trust me, you do NOT want to piss them off."

"If you say so…"

"Anyway, I'm going to take a nap." Naruto finally said, before going over to where Juugo had crashed and robbing him of the pillow he'd pilfered sometime during his outburst about magical ponies.

* * *

"So, we're setting out." Said Jiraiya. "Show of hands, who's a virgin?"

From the Konoha Ten, only Shikamaru and Lee didn't raise their hands. There was a long, drawn out silence.

"Seriously?" Asked the perverted old man. "You guys are going off to a mission that can possibly mean your deaths and you didn't take the chance to discover the joys of sex before you went out?"

Meanwhile, the guys turned to Lee. Everyone knew that Shikamaru was in a relationship with Temari and that they made the most of it when they met, so it was no surprise on that end. "What?" Lee asked. "Sharing our love is one of the most youthful ways to get exercise, right Gai-sensei?"

Gai blinked. "That's not what I meant, you fool!" He yelled, boinking him over the head.

Jiraiya clapped Gai on the back. "Actually, I agree with him. I should know. It keeps me fit!" He said with a lecherous grin.

"Hm… this theory bears testing…" Kakashi muttered.

"We agree." Said Asuma and Kurenai nonchalantly. "We will test it thoroughly when we get back from this." Kurenai finished.

"Don't you mean 'if'?" Neji asked. He'd had a regression back to his fatalistic ways of viewing life after Naruto, the source of his inspiration to become a more positive person, got killed because of that same mindset.

"No, I'm plenty sure she said 'when', jackass." Kiba said, Akamaru barking in agreement. The massive dog looked ready for battle, ready to kick ass.

"Kiba-kun is right, we'll be fine." Said Hinata, offering the Inuzuka a grateful smile. As much as she'd changed as a result of Naruto's death, meaning, adopting his life's philosophy, she still retained most of her politeness, reasoning that she'd only be a cheap copy of the original if she tried to imitate Naruto.

Sakura sighed. "Can we get this over with? There are tons of paperwork piling up for me at the hospital." She said, cracking her neck and knuckles as she did. "And this is interrupting my Sakura time."

Ino shivered. She'd been the only one to ever interrupt Sakura's 'Me time' and had ended up being thrown halfway across the village for it. Sakura was a bitter, jaded individual who blamed herself for the death of one of her teammates and the defection of the other one. Ino had been one of the people blaming her for both, but today she could only feel pity for the pink haired kunoichi.

No matter how insanely strong she'd become, how far her newfound determination had taken her, she was still a pathetic little girl running away from the problems she couldn't punch to death.

Ignoring their antics, Jiraiya sighed. "Okay people. I doubt that whatever this thing is will be friendly. Chances are it's hostile." He explained, rubbing the bridge of his nose and mentally complaining about how he was getting too old for this shit. "We'll formulate a plan once we can assess the threat." He said, cracking his neck. "'Kay, kiddies, regroup and roll out!" Jiraiya commanded.

They didn't have to run for very long, though.

* * *

There was a poof and a cloud of smoke in the middle of the camp. A tall, very tall man, appeared from the smoke and almost immediately dropped into a defensive stance, twisting and turning his body so that he could block the incoming massive fist that the wooden giant had swung his way.

There was a flash of white as the man was sent flying back, or rather, he let himself get pushed away, only for a green blur to take the stage and catch the overextended golem in the middle of the torso.

The former sound nins' eyes bugged out as not only was the wooden giant's body lifted of the ground, it'd been sent away with such an incredible display of force and speed that it'd even cried out in pain.

There was the poof of another body flicker, then several more, as the camp was suddenly flooded with foreign chakra signatures that Karin couldn't recognize. She could barely even sense them, being so close to the massive roaring fire that was Naruto's signature.

The swordsgirl that Karin was still scared shitless of dashed forward, to where the green-clad man that had kicked the golem away was waiting eagerly for the confrontation. There was the sound of a technique crashing, a grunt of effort and of metal grinding against leather.

A flash of silver followed by cracking black lightning was the only warning that the green clad man got before he was thrown back. The clanging of metal against metal and a grunt of tremendous effort alerted everybody to the fact that the demon had met resistance in her attack.

A sound not too unlike birds chirping, in turn, alerted the swordsgirl that was easily pushing a man twice her size back to drop the clash and turn around long enough to see a charging blue blur sparking with lightning. The cyan haired demon grunted before taking to the air, easily clearing the treetops with a single bound.

Only to get a shower of weapons tossed in her general direction.

Without hesitation, she sheathed her blade and got in an airborne version of the standard battoujutsu stance. Without even a grunt, she quickly pulled it out and there was a mad flash of silver and black. All weapons thrown in her direction were effectively batted out of the air.

"Reppusho!" yelled the tall, bearded man wielding dual knives, as several more Kunai shot, this time far faster, towards the samurai girl. This time, however, she didn't have time to block the attacks, which caused the knives to sink deep into her flesh. She crashed to the ground shortly thereafter.

Only to stand up like she didn't have several kunai sticking out of her body and bloodying the once white portion of her miko uniform. "Poo! I only have one of these!" She said, eyeing the rapidly bloodying clothes.

"The fuck…" Someone muttered. "Take her out!"

There was a sound not unlike a drill going through the earth and two gray, spinning blurs came into her field of vision, smashing onto her from each side. Although most would've expected her to be torn apart by the attack, she didn't even flinch as the attack sent her flying and crashing against a tree, further ruining her shirt and exposing her woefully flat chest.

Seeing as even that had failed to faze the target, the attackers moved to plan C. The swordsgirl didn't even see the pink haired female that snuck up behind her to deliver a devastatingly powerful punch to the back of her head, which sent her flying and crashing face first through two trees before she came to a stop on the third.

"That tickles!" She said, giggling as she pulled the knives still lodged in her body from it, leaving the gaping holes behind as if they weren't extremely debilitating wounds.

* * *

The wooden golem stood up from the spot where it'd crashed against a tree, only to see two green blurs, glowing with power, approach him. He didn't even get to do anything as the smaller blur punched him under the jaw, an action that sent the golem flying, while the other green blur rapidly leaped into the air to deliver a staggeringly powerful series of kicks that launched him further up.

When he hit the apex of the green blur's jump, the golem had enough presence of mind to see both blurs converge above him and somehow push off each other, causing their descent's speed to be increased dramatically.

They speared into him, pushing the golem all the way down to the ground and leaving a sizable crater there.

* * *

Suigetsu, meanwhile, howled what a good time he was having as he used the Onyx Blade to easily outpace the three individuals he faced in battle. A pair of Hyuuga and a rather large looking guy that no doubt was an Akimichi had squared off against him.

Normally, he'd be fucked.

As it was, even with the pithy trickle of power that flowed into him from the Onyx Blade's vast reserves, he was still completely dominating them.

Both Hyuuga stood around him. One in front and one in back. He narrowed his eyes as they set in the same stance.

"Hakke Rokujuyon Sho!" they both cried at once

"Damn…" Suigetsu let out, as he felt as if someone poked him one hundred and twenty eight times in a row, except the pokes were done with a hot piece of iron.

He grunted, before taking advantage of their distracted state after they'd delivered their attacks to kick the male in the face and push off him to deliver a roundhouse kick to the female. Then he used his airborne spin to slash at the Akimichi's massive hand as it came forth, nearly slicing four fingers off and knocking the attack off course.

"What the hell. How are they so strong!?" Someone yelled, seeing how the swordsgirl wasn't even winded from her efforts or the wounds in her body.

The swordsgirl smiled evilly. Then, in a brownish blur, the wooden giant was standing next to her, completely unharmed. "I must commend your physical strength, to move my body so easily. However, you are still decades away from inflicting an injury upon this indestructible body of mine!"

There was an incredibly tense air as the attacking party realized that their planned attack hadn't gone through as they'd expected it to and the defending party seemed entirely nonchalant about surviving attacks they shouldn't be able to.

"Can't a guy just go to sleep for FIVE SECONDS without something happening? I swear to god, every time I go to sleep something happens that interrupts my dreams of the sea of Ramen!" Said a rather annoyed, raspy voice, instantly cutting through the tense air. "Oh." It added, looking around.

"What the… Naruto!?" A shrill female voice shrieked.

"Naruto-kun!?" another one repeated.

Naruto grinned. "Demon Overlord Uzumaki Naruto, in the flesh!" Said blond raised one eyebrow. "Say, why the hell are you guys trying to kill my vassals?" He asked, looking positively unaffected by the events that had just unfolded. "And Suigetsu." He added as an afterthought, seeing the annoyed glance that the Swordsman threw his way.

* * *

Interesting fact: Suigetsu has all of his chakra sealed away by Hinata and Neji, but blocking the Tenketsu does jack shit when your amazing power comes from Revya's mana running through your body.


	9. The Reckongening

"Ah, great, it's you." Naruto said, rolling his eyes. "Can you go away? I was in the middle of a nice dream." He said, looking deadpan.

"N-Naruto, you're alive!" Sakura nearly shrieked, dashing forward to tackle-glomp Naruto…

… Only to get bitchslapped away by the flat side of a Katana. She felt the shocks of the black lightning cursing through her veins.

"We thought Sasuke'd killed you…" Said Shino, his emotions actually showing his confusion."But even though my Kikaichu don't want to get close to you, they can still confirm your presence. It is you, no doubt." The Aburame said.

Naruto grunted. The darkness seemed heavier, all of a sudden, as his cerulean blue eyes closed…

… and when they opened again, a crimson red stare bore through the skull of Haruno Sakura. He pushed off the ground with ease, his red and black cloak remaining only centimeters away from the floor.

"Naruto? What's wrong with you?" Asked Kakashi, worry clear in his voice.

"Why do you ask, if you don't even care?"

"What are you saying!? We care about you!"

He chuckled. It was a dark and low sound, threatening even. With the added reverberation in his voice it made his laugh sound deranged and insane, even if he was merely finding their words amusing. His cloak billowed under the force of the wind that had increased its speed significantly. "No…" He muttered, looking at the floor before looking at them, offering them a bitter, cold smile. "You never cared about me at all."

"That's not true and you know it!" Sakura cried.

"Isn't it?" He asked, tilting his head to the side slightly. He slouched in the air as another chuckle shook him. "Coming from you, this is actually very funny. Weren't you the one who kept shouting at me to stop pestering you? To stop wanting to hang out with you? To stop propping you up when Sasuke crushed your self confidence?" He said, his eyes carrying not the coldness nor the venom that his voice was filled with.

She hung her head, incapable of continuing to face him after the onslaught of his words.

"Naruto… this is not like you!" Said the silver haired jounin, his single visible eye narrowed, the other already safe under the headband.

"Not like me?" The blond replied, raising an eyebrow. "And what would you know about me?" He asked.

"I'm his sensei, I know a lot about Naruto, and you're not him!" The silver haired man's voice was filled with anger, at the doppelganger that had taken the form of his student.

The blond leaned a bit forward, his hands finding their way to his pockets. He looked not unlike a rebellious preteen. "No. You just keep telling yourself that you were a teacher." He said, his voice filled with hatred as he spoke. "If you know so much, then let's have a round of trivia, shall we? First, what's my favorite color?"

"Orange." Kakashi answered quickly.

"WRONG! It's red." Naruto sing-sung, his voice inappropriately cheerful. "I have always loved red. There was this girl who lived close to me, she had the most beautiful red hair I've ever seen... Sakura's was the closest thing to it I've ever seen..."

"What!? But I could've sworn… with the jumpsuit…"

"Do you think I liked it? It was the only thing I could get. Granted, it WAS awesome, but I didn't buy it because it was my favorite color!" The blond explained. "Haven't you wondered why I'm wearing mostly red now? Anyway, next question: Who is my childhood hero?"

"The Yondaime Hokage." Kakashi again replied automatically.

"WRONG! It was Naruto, the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi." The similarly named Fishcake said, sliding a bit back in the air. "And now, for the final question: Why did I invent the Oiroke No Jutsu?"

Kakashi actually took the time to think about the question. That was something he'd asked himself many times. Both why, and more specifically, how…

"You don't know the answer, do you?" Naruto asked, grinning widely.

"You… used it to prank perverts?" Kakashi tried, already feeling deflated from his earlier failures.

"Again, wrong." Naruto said, softly, looking at the far off distance. "I created it because… Because I wanted people to look at me, and I noticed how sexy women received lots of attention so… I Henged myself into a sexy woman and walked around town like that…" he said, a bitter smile on his face. "Everyone was so nice to her, yanno? I didn't even know how to actually do the Henge, so… I had to improvise."

Everyone was actually surprised at the blatant admission that he had been an almost literal attention whore. "You knew nothing about me. You never gave enough of a shit to ever look deep into me."

"Don't say that!" Kakashi said. "I cared!" He said, taking a step forward.

"You did?" The boy said, sounding genuinely surprised. "Oh, pardon me, I must not have seen it with all the not giving a shit you were doing at the time." He added, adding a heavy dose of venom to his words as he spoke. "IF you'd cared, at all, about me, heck, about any of us, you wouldn't have shown up three hours late to every meeting we had. You would have taught us something, anything at all. You would have given us advice when we were having problems. You never did any of that. The only one of us you ever trained, truly trained, was Sasuke."

The boy spat his words with a conviction much unlike anything anyone had ever heard from him. Anyone but Sakura. The one time she'd ever seen him so sure of himself was the last time she'd seen her, before he went out to chase after Sasuke, when he vowed to bring him back. Her heart ached to see him so filled with hatred towards them.

"And the technique you taught him… Your own original jutsu, the Chidori…" Naruto's eyes centered on Kakashi, while a hand went to touch his chest, over his heart. "It hurt so much, you know? Felt like a lightning bolt had struck me in the chest. It burned and tingled and tickled all at once…"

Kakashi felt his heart skip a beat, his eyes widened and he felt shame unlike anything he'd ever felt before.

Then Naruto turned to Jiraiya. "And you… You know? You're the worst. You gave me hope. You gave me the hope that there might be somebody, out there, who gave a flying fuck about me. You made me believe that I wasn't alone." He said, looking actually nostalgic for a moment. "What a fool I was to ever think that. You didn't give a shit. I was useful. I was useful in convincing the old hag to get her ass back to the village." There was a hint of affection as he spoke the derogatory term.

"Naruto… I really do care about you… you're my godson…" Jiraiya said, sounding as ashamed as Kakashi looked.

"No, you don't. You don't give a flying fuck about me and you never have. And you know what? You just made my opinion of you lower even more. Where the hell were you all those years!? Where the hell were you during the weeks I had to go without food because my stipend 'mysteriously' got lost or never got delivered to me? Where were you when I had to go to a whore for my basic education? Where the hell were you when I had to beg a pimp for enough ryo to buy a goddamn cup of instant ramen!?"

His voice growing deranged as he spoke, his expression shifting into one of pure hatred and resentment, didn't help anyone ignore the poignancy of his questions. Again, this was all aided by the fact that his voice reverberated as he spoke, giving it a further insane vibe.

There was an incredibly tense silence.

He brought a palm to his face and threw his head back, laughing like crazy as he did. "Oh, man, you should've seen your faces!" He yelled, falling to the ground and having to grab his stomach, pain overtaking him from laughing so much.

The tension crashed like a billion shards of glass, leaving everyone gaping like fish.

"I…" Sakura muttered.

Naruto let out a deep and long sigh. "You guys?" He said, turning to the rest of the gathered Shinobi, rubbing his chin and looking thoughtful. "You're all okay!" He said, offering them a thumbs up, before turning back to those he'd addressed before. "Seriously, me? Turning out all emo and hate-driven like emopants over there? No way!" He said.

"Naruto! It inspires me to see that even becoming a demon in the fiery pits of hell has not quenched your flames of youth!" Lee said, smacking his chest. "I will work twice as hard from now on, to be as youthful as you!"

"No, Lee…" Gai muttered, softly. "Naruto's flames of youth… can't be compared to any other! We must work thrice- no, four times as hard as before!" He said, putting an arm around Lee's shoulders, crying tears of manly awesomeness, engaging the Sunset Of Youth behind him.

This caused Naruto to break out laughing again. Considering his voice was still resonating and aided by a demonic undertone, this shook the ninja to their core. "And that's why I like you guys." Naruto said, offering them a thumbs up. "You've always been the most honest of the lot. Anyway… Back to the jerks…" He said, turning back to his ex team and Jiraiya.

Sakura seemed hopeful that Naruto didn't hate her anywhere near as much as he'd given away.

"You know something funny? Pram is brutal. And I do mean brutal. She has, so far, broken every bone in my body at least three times, I have had sixteen different kinds of skull fractures, she has ripped my heart out of my body, thrown me through a planet, frozen me stiff, whipped, broken, crushed, cut and done a variety of other unpleasant things to me." He mused, looking at the distant sky. "And yet she's still the best teacher I've ever had. Goes to show how lousy you two really were as teachers." He said absent mindedly. "At least she actually taught me stuff, explained what I had to do to learn, explained the point of the exercises, explained why what I did didn't work, explained me how to fix my mistakes and helped me with the tedious and complicated stuff. Not once did she stop to goof off like an idiot, and not once did she let her responsibilities go to the wayside, either. She trained me and ran her netherworld, which is about TWICE THE SIZE OF THIS PLANET, at the same time. She actually gave a damn about my training. And you know the most interesting part? She never lied to me about why she wanted me to be strong, either!"

Both of his teachers narrowed their eyes. He dismissed it as their reaction to him basically pointing out that he knew their bullshit.

"The only reason she trained me was because there's an insanely powerful demon overlord who often annoys the crap out of her and she wants to have people with enough power that she can annoy him in return. That's all. I'm just a tool in this endeavor… and again, she's still the best teacher I've ever had."

"I… can't believe this." Kakashi said, sighing. "I'm… I'm sorry, Naruto. I know I'll never make it up to you but…"

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry too." Jiraiya said. "I guess I was too used to training the Yondaime, who only needed the basic gist of the idea to figure things out on his own…"

"News flash, morons: I'm not the Yondaime. The man was a bloody genius. If you hadn't noticed from my grades, I'm not! I barely knew enough to scrap by. Even today, I still have no fucking clue how the henge actually works, I figured out the Kawarimi on sheer fluke and the Kage Bunshin is so simple that anyone with enough chakra can do it!" he ranted. "Anyway… Let's go. I've had enough of you guys for another lifetime." He said, grunting as he floated past them, his demonic aura and the threatening presence that surrounded the camp vanishing as his feet touched the ground. "We'll head to Konoha... and we'll walk at a slow pace. It's been a while since I've been to a forest, and we've got a lot to catch up on..."

At that point, Jiraiya felt his heart lose a tremendous weight. Because Naruto had smiled. And it wasn't a cold and cruel smile like the other ones. It was a smile that was void of anything other than simple contentness. Apparently, all he really had to do was get that off his chest. At the moment, the past didn't matter to him. For that mere moment, there was only one thing in the old man's mind.

"Don't worry kid, I'll make it up to you, somehow." Jiraiya vowed to himself as they walked.

* * *

The next day, however, there was a very important doubt in the mind of one certain Hozuki Suigetsu. "Wait, if what Karin said is true and you're somehow made from a chunk of Naruto… how are you two thousand years old when, by his own admission, he's only fifteen years old?" Suigetsu asked, sounding completely curious.

"Ah, the answer to that is rather simple." The sword wielding girl answered, smiling cheerfully. "I lied!" She chirped.

Suigetsu nearly facefaulted.

AND THERE'S THE MOODSWING, WHOO!


	10. The Fillergening

"Anyway, what are your blades? I've never heard of legendary swords with that description before… And trust me, I know a lot about legendary weapons." Tenten, as introduced to Suigetsu, the weapons mistress of Konoha, asked, looking specifically at the still somewhat peeved Suigetsu and the girl who'd caused said anger in him.

Suigetsu frowned and looked at the girl with the spiky hair. "Ask her. They're both hers."

She laughed. "They aren't mine, they're Naruto-sama's!" She said, cheerfully. "Well, the Onyx Blade technically belongs to some guy named Median or to a god named Vigilance. I can't remember." She said, shrugging. "Anyway, originally, it was just indestructible and served to unlock the demon powers of that Median guy's family. After sealing a death god in it, though, it became an outrageously powerful sword. After that god was pulled out of the sword, though, its previous owner was sealed in it. It makes its wielder far stronger by allowing Revya's mana to seep into them."

"So that's how it works, huh… What is Mana, anyway?" Suigetsu asked.

"It's kinda like chakra and let's leave it at that. You guys don't need to know, anyway, humans can't manipulate Mana without extensive coaching while it comes naturally to demons and angels." The demon girl spoke, shaking her head. This brought Tenten's attention to her long, pointy ears. She turned back and saw similar ears on Naruto, who was chatting animatedly with Kiba and Chouji about what had happened in his absence.

"Anyway… what about your sword?" Tenten asked, looking at the still cracking with energy Katana.

"The Masamune? That one's actually simple. There's this Blacksmith in Master's netherworld who's a total genius with a hammer, so we commissioned the finest blade he could make. Since we needed the finest materials for it, Naruto-sama kindly gave me a sword named Yoshitsuna to disassemble and melt for the ingredients!"

Tenten's eyes shot to her hairline. "Yoshitsuna? As in the Dark Sword of Myth, The Blade To End All Other Blades, the Ultimate Almighty Sword That Divided The Sky, the one that supposedly once split a continent in half?"

"That one, yeah!" She chirped.

"It existed!? And you destroyed it to make a katana!?" Tenten raged.

"Yep!"

"I… I don't know whether to be jealous or what… And how did Naruto get it, anyway?"

"Killed its previous owner and stole it. That's how most transactions work in the netherworld. And don't worry, we have like five of those." She said, handwaving her concerns away.

"Can I have one?" Asked Tenten, her eyes sparkling.

"I dunno…" The swordsgirl said. "Can you wield a sword?" She asked. "'Cuz I won't give you nuffin' if you can't."

"I'm called the Weapons Mistress because there's no weapon I can't wield or haven't mastered!"

The swordsgirl grinned madly, then. "Oh, I do have something for you, then!" She said, digging with her left arm into her right arm's sleeve. She rummaged through it for a few seconds before pulling out a thin, long red object that curved on both ends. "This is Naruto-sama's level 300 Crowbar!"

It was, indeed, a simple crowbar.

Tenten looked positively bemused. "How is a crowbar a weapon!?" Asked Tenten…

…Only to see Naruto dive to snatch the crowbar out of the swordsgirl hands. "Oh, hell no, you're not doing the demonstration this time!" yelled the blond. "I always have to pay for the damage you cause with this thing…" He said, twirling the red implement in his hands. It seemed to be made of simple steel with nothing to it.

"No, seriously, how is that a weapon?"

Naruto scoffed, then turned towards a tree. The entire ninja convoy halted as he walked up to it and poked it with one of the crowbar's curved ends, causing the tree to explode in splinters, all of which were sent away from the location where he'd struck the tree in. There was nothing off it, even the roots had been completely obliterated.

Tenten's jaw dropped.

"This thing? Seriously powerful." Naruto said. "Anyway… I only have one of those, so I can't let you have it, sorry." He said apologetically. "I do have a consolation prize, though!"

The swordsgirl huffed. "You never let me have any fun!" She cried indignantly.

"Your fun involves massive amounts of property damage that I have to fix later." Naruto snapped back. "Anyway…" He dug into his coat's pockets and seemed to find something he then pulled out…

… It was a frankly massive sword about twice his width and three times as long as he was tall. It made Tenten's jaw drop just from seeing it. The black, flat blade gave way to an ancient looking edge and the entire thing looked like it was a giant spike, what with the comparatively tiny looking handle.

"This is the Baal Sword. The permanently magichanged form of a Baal Clone. Don't cut yourself with it, the wounds this thing inflicts don't heal without magic and the closest Netherworld Hospital is in Nami." Naruto explained, tossing the sword, handle first at Tenten, who caught it by said handle and felt her jaw drop at the sheer lightness of it. She could've sworn it had to weigh at least several hundred pounds from sheer size alone.

She almost immediately jumped towards Naruto and did unspeakable things to his face as a way of showing her thanks.

Naruto, meanwhile, offered a thumbs up to Neji, who looked positively murderous, and everyone shared a laugh at his expense.

"So… Demon Overlord…" Shikamaru began, sounding as curious as a Nara ever could.

"That's a funny story." Naruto said, scratching the back of his neck. "You see, when a demon gets stronger, their ability to manipulate mana increases. There really is no limit on how much mana someone can have, but most people never get to have very much mana, since you gain mana by taking someone else's, and the only demons that offer a sizable mana gain are generally not easy to steal mana from." He admitted. "In my case, though, since Pram, my teacher in all things demonic, trained me from the ground up until I could beat up weaker overlords with my hands tied behind my back, I never had that problem, so I accumulated a ton of Mana."

"And you used that Mana to become an overlord yourself." Shikamaru summarized.

"I used it to create my own world." Naruto said, smiling. "I had to convince the Badass Freakin' Overlord Zetta, and yes I do have to say his title like that, to let me write my wish on the Sacred Tome, a book that grants wishes so long as you have the Mana to make it real."

"That sounds awfully convenient." Neji commented.

"It isn't. It's owner is a giant jackass. And he's also the single most powerful Overlord in the Cosmos, so we can't even force him to give it up." Naruto said, frustrated. "Not even his wife can convince him to give it up!"

Shino looked attentive. "And is it not possible to steal the book from him?" Shino asked. "It seems to me that someone should have tried at least that much."

"Trust me, we've tried. It's never worked so far. The problem with Zetta is that it's not just him who's insanely tough. His vassals are all immensely powerful. If mine are at overlord-level on their own, then most of his vassals could probably make legends of their own if they weren't mindless bodies."

"Mindless bodies?" Asked Ino, raising her eyebrow. That sounded insanely useful for the Yamanaka techniques that could forcefully take possession of a body, since most of the chakra strain that came from the techniques came from the target's resistance.

"Yeah. They all share a single mind. Zetta apparently only has one real vassal who creates and takes control of the other bodies. I don't know how it works, either, since when I create my own vassals they come with personalities of their own." Naruto said, sounding more than a tad annoyed about said fact. Considering his prior interaction with the samurai girl that was even now talking with Suigetsu and Tenten about swords and the many legendary weapons in Naruto's possession, they could figure out why.

"Wait… you… create your own vassals?" Ino asked, thinking of the many perverted things that could be done with that.

Kiba stopped, almost tripped, and then began to drool at the thought of creating his own dream team of big breasted girls who were completely subservient to him.

"Yeah." Naruto said, smiling. "I just have to take it to the dark senate, sort of a ninja council for demons except that beating them all up and forcing them to pass my bills is standard procedure, and then I can take a chunk of my mana and turn it into a demon from one of the templates they have."

"So, these two… you created them?" Chouji asked, looking both at the giant chatting with Lee and Gai (both of whom were admiring the Wood Golem's flames of youth and its physical prowess) and the samurai girl who only had some bandages covering her modesty since the front of her shirt had been shredded beyond repair.

"Yep. I have created around thirty six of my vassals while the rest just came to live on my netherworld." Naruto said, smiling widely.

"That does sound insanely cool." Kiba said.

"Do you think we could meet some of them, Naruto-kun?" Hinata asked, curious as to who hung around Naruto. She had half a mind to kill the bitch who dared be in her place at Naruto's side, but realized that she was merely a vassal, and most importantly, a part of him, so how could she hate her? She loved every part of Naruto's body and soul, and she was a part of it, so she loved her too! Not that it'd prevent her from doing unspeakable things to her corpse if she dared to take Naruto for herself.

"Well, considering I'm gonna take over the world at some point, I'm sure you will."

This brought everyone to a crashing halt.

"What?!" Yelled Asuma, raising both eyebrows.

"Well, yeah, I'm a Demon Overlord. I already rule one planet, but it's small so I thought about taking over this one since it's bigger." Naruto rationalized his idea, shrugging as he did. "Besides, nothing much will change anyway. The Kages, Daimyos and lords everywhere will simply answer to me. The only place that will really change is Nami since I'm moving my netherworld there." He explained.

Jiraiya frowned and looked at Naruto, before walking up to him and crouching so he could look at him at eye level. "Tell me... How do you intend to take over the world and how will you rule it?" Asked the white haired toad sage.

"Oh, that part is simple!" The samurai girl chirped.

"Quiet, you." Woody the Wood Golem snapped.

"She's right, yanno. I'll just walk up to all five Kages, kick their asses and force them to make some kind of United Nations organism, at which point I will take over THAT and from there rule the world. I mean, if I can beat up all five Kages at once, who the hell is gonna question my authority?"

Naruto then grinned cheerfully, causing Jiraiya to facepalm. "Then you'll have to deal with their armies, Naruto, and…"

"Ero-sennin… Hit me with the strongest Rasengan you can."

"Wha- but that will hurt you, and I'm trying to regain your trust here!" The perverted Sage said, frowning and looking confused. On the one hand, he was glad Naruto had actually called Ero-sennin, since it was an affectionate nickname. On the other… well, he'd just asked him to do something extremely dangerous.

"Just do it. Trust me on this one." Naruto said. "I am not a little idiot anymore."

"I don't know about that…" Jiraiya muttered, before complying. "Rasengan!" Jiraiya yelled after a second of preparation, smashing the sphere of chakra in Naruto's chest… Only to watch it dissipate harmlessly upon contact.

"You couldn't even scratch my shirt." Indeed, the button up orange shirt under the black of his coat remained unharmed. "I'm not even equipped right now. Believe me when I tell you, Ero-sennin, that if I wanted to take over this world through force, I could do it in five minutes by killing everyone important."

Jiraiya frowned but said nothing.

"Besides… " He began, grinning. "Everyone will be too busy trying to adjust to the new life that they'll have no time for war!"

* * *

James Earl Jones, the Land Of Iron's resident giant black dildo, frowned underneath his mask. "How was I supposed to know that it would only piss him off even more and make him fight like a demon possessed?" He yelled to the leader of the Samurai, Mifune.

The great Head of the samurai Namakubi, meanwhile, shook… itself. "You killed his girlfriend, what did you THINK would happen?"

Mifune sighed. "Either way, we drove him away for the time being, which is what we must concentrate on. We have to rebuild and regroup, count our losses and prepare for his return. What did he say his name was?"

The man in black sighed. "His name is CONAN, the GOVERNATOR."

"Did you have to yell?" Namakubi asked.

"Yes. It's entirely necessary." James Earl Jones replied.

"Just like shooting a fucking snake at his girlfriend." Namakubi said, rolling his eyes. "Or causing one of our archers to commit suicide for no reason."

"She was dumb, anyway."

"Anyway… We'll have to call upon Weapon X." Mifune said.

"I already know, bub." Weapon X spoke. "I will take out this chump, no problem, because I'm the best there is at what I do!"

"Yeah, yeah, and what you do is not play volleyball since in the last game you caused us to lose horribly!" Namakubi roared.

"It's not my fault the ball was so flimsy!"

"Anyway, Weapon X, you aren't alone in this. Another one of your old partners will go with you."

"Please, tell me it's Creed. If it's the other guy, I swear to god, I will find a way to kill him."

Mifune only offered him a smug smile.


	11. The Knight Of Cerebus Cometh

"Explain. Now." Tsunade commanded.

After the whole bloody affair had been, indeed, explained, Tsunade kicked everyone but Naruto out of the room.

"So… you're pissed at everyone, I take it?"

Naruto chuckled, leaning back against the chair provided for him. He contemplated placing his legs on her desk and, finding no reason not to, did so. Tsunade frowned, but did nothing more than that. "I was, yeah." He said, shrugging his shoulders. "I also felt kinda guilty for bringing you to this place when I thought it was such a shithole but… I spent an entire year in the equivalent of hell and moved on to getting brutally beaten up by Pram every day." He seemed dissonantly cheerful as he spoke. "She has a way of making everything seem better by comparison."

Tsunade let out an amused chuckle. "So I was right, you only learn when you get things literally pounded into that hard head of yours." She then frowned when her eyes locked onto his ears. "Still… I wish I could've done something more for you…"

"You did plenty. You gave a damn, that's all I needed, really." The smaller blond said, waving away her concerns. "And hey, you took my advice and didn't let this deter you from your duty! Lord knows running my netherworld is a pain in the ass."

Tsunade smirked. "And you're the guy who wanted to be Hokage. How's ruling a planet working out?"

Naruto then offered her his own smirk. "What's one of your main problems? Attempting to get your bills through a council more interested in being self serving jackasses than in everyone's wellbeing, right? I know it's one of mine." The blond said, looking almost entirely too smug for such a statement.

"Every politician should know that much. Being Hokage sucks." Tsunade summarized, rummaging through one of her drawers and pulling a sake bottle, giving it a long sip.

"Do you know how I pass my bills, old hag?" She bristled at the comment but also smiled, having missed that far more than she should have. "The same way every other overlord does it. I beat the ever loving shit out of the Senate and force them to pass my bills. Frankly, I don't even know why they bother when they all know they'll end up beaten up."

"Lucky bastard." Tsunade muttered.

"I brought you a gift, too." Naruto said, again sinking his hand into his impossibly deep coat pocket. He proceeded to bring out a brownish bottle with a white note tied to it with a colorful ribbon. It read 'Booze, handle with care'. "Ever wondered what booze from hell tastes like?"

"You shouldn't have!" Tsunade said, far too cheerfully. After all, when else would she get the chance to taste stuff so exotic as something that came from hell itself.

"Now, you shouldn't abuse this stuff, 'cuz it's expensive as all hell and incredibly hard to find…" Naruto said, handing Tsunade the bottle. "So I could only get a dozen bottles. Save them for special occasions, ne?"

Tsunade easily stuck the cork to her fingertip with chakra and pulled it out. It was surprisingly hard to do so. The bottle wasn't made from simple human glass. Had she tried to smash it against her desk, it'd have punched right through. She sniffed it and almost instantly was assaulted with the smell of something she couldn't place and didn't really want to.

The mere smell of it sent a wave of dizziness through her. "My god… How much alcohol does this thing have?"

Naruto smiled. "Enough to get ANYONE drunk with a few drops. To this day, the only person not to get drunk from it is the one that doesn't even smell it."

Tsunade did, indeed, take a small sip of the Netherwine. "It tastes… like… Rainbows." She said, her eyes losing focus for a few seconds before she straightened out. "Woah." She muttered, looking at the bottle as if it was an alien. "These things'll last forever if they get me this drunk this easily."

"That's the idea." Naruto said, grinning. "Anyway… I guess it's about time we talked about what you really want to talk about. So… World domination."

"I can't believe you're that dumb to think that people will just accept it. Though… I guess it IS just like you to have such an impossible dream." Tsunade said, looking bored at the most. "But yeah, I'll support it. The less missions we do the less paperwork that comes to my desk and, who knows, maybe in the new world you create Shinobi won't be needed anymore."

Naruto laughed. "Actually, there are Ninja Demons. Though for some reason they all look like Kakashi. Though since most are actually older than Kakashi, I guess that Kakashi looks like them." It was an interesting and confusing concept. Mostly, though, Naruto ignored the issue. The moment one of them started reading porn, though, he'd ban written pornography in his netherworld.

"Seriously?" Tsunade asked.

"I shit you not, they've got the same hair and the goddamn mask." Naruto said. "And they're ALL douchebags."

"Naruto, all ninja are douchebags to some extent." Tsunade said, sighing. "You're a demon Overlord, you should know this stuff!"

Naruto laughed. "Tsunade, even for an overlord I'm considered fairly strong. I have never had to deal with this bullshit because, within my netherworld, there is no demon stupid enough to think he can take me on a fight and survive. So yeah, I don't know this stuff 'cuz I've never had to deal with it."

"Netherworld politics sound awfully convenient, but they won't work on a world like this. People will rise together to combat you."

"Let them rise up." Naruto said, scoffing. "I fear no mortal man, nor do I fear any mortal army." The man said, folding his arms over his chest. Tsunade could no longer deny it. The cheerful little boy she'd come to know had been forced to grow up by an environment too harsh for his innocence.

"Does that mean you fear mortal women?" Tsunade asked, curious.

Naruto hesitated for a second. "Actually, yeah, you still scare me shitless." Naruto said, grinning widely.

"Glad to know I've still got some authority, brat."

"Fear has never impaired me, Baa-chan." Naruto said, good naturedly. "Trust me, an angry Pram is much scarier than you are."

"You have to tell me some more of this 'Pram' woman you met. She sounds like someone I could become friends with." Tsunade said, drinking of her normal sake. She didn't want to be wasted so soon into the day.

"Well… The less said, the better. She's actually smaller than me, last time I checked, and kinda conscious about it so if you ever meet her… you know." He said, shrugging. "She's violent, short tempered, sarcastic, bossy, frigid and overall bitchy."

"Sounds like you like her a lot." Tsunade said, lifting her bottle to her lips and forgetting about the saucer to serve it entirely.

"I do." Naruto said, smiling widely. "She might be all of those things, but she's really sweet under the cold, frigid bitch exterior. Either that or she pounded me so hard she gave me brain damage. Either works, really." Naruto said, causing Tsunade to laugh openly.

"Also, I've heard rumors that you slept with the Mizukage." Tsunade seemed serious. "The fuck's up with that?"

"Ah, that. Well, you see, there's this thing called an Evility. Most demons only have one intrinsic to their species, while the more powerful demons have unique evilities. They can, through a complicated process that involves diving into one's own soul, be given to other people as well. In my case, I met a demon lord whose Evility basically made him a chick magnet. The guy was INSANELY popular with girls. Last I saw him he had something like thirty three girls at his beck and call. It's funny because I'm fairly sure the guy's gay, but he's such a natural gigolo that it only works in his favor."

"So you… were given his… Evility." Tsunade still had difficulty comprehending the thought of having abilities being referred to as 'Evilities', but she chalked it up to it being a demon thing. Demons were weird, from the explanation she'd received.

"Yep. Pram thought it'd be useful, since Zetta's Vassal takes generally female forms whenever it communicates with anyone. I originally went to Kiri to kill the Yondaime Mizukage, but it was a female Godaime that received me in her office, and we were bored so we watched It and played the Stephen King Drinking Game. One thing led to another and next time I wake up I'm in her bed, naked and feeling like a cat had just used my back as a scratching post."

Tsunade, having had the whole Zetta issue explained to her, only nodded.

"What people don't say is that I dropped by Shion's for a visit and she kinda jumped me. I now know how that guy felt, being incapable of holding a conversation without people looking at his groin. I'm glad you seem to be immune, Baa-chan."

"I'm not, Naruto, I'm just more discreet about it." She said. "That and I'm a fifty something year old woman. There have been approximately nine thousand four hundred and ninety three attempts at seducing me, a thousand of which were during my first year as Hokage." She said, handwaving his concerns away. "Even if yours is more effective, you've got a long way to go before you can seduce me."

Naruto scoffed. "I could if I wanted to, Baa-chan."

"What, you don't want to? You don't think I'm pretty, Naruto?" she asked, with a fake sultry tone. Not that Naruto knew that it was fake.

Naruto scoffed again.

"Anyway, back on the main issue." Tsunade said, raising her head. "I can call the five kage meeting, but they won't ever agree to form a joint, multinational organism." Tsunade explained.

Naruto then grinned. "They will if there's a common threat that requires them to. And that's exactly where I come in. I will begin with a takeover of Nami, and from there, I'll start expanding my territory, making sure to provoke all nations so they'll all have a reason to join up to smack me."

"How will you make this a credible threat, though? One guy, no matter how strong, will never be enough of a threat to need all five Great Villages in an alliance." Tsunade said, frowning. She wanted to believe his words, but it wasn't as simple as he seemed to think it was.

"Demon. Overlord. Tsunade." Naruto stressed. "I have been preparing for this for a while. I will take over this world, regardless of whether it's the easy or the hard route. Whether you help me in this endeavor or not is of no consequence, Hokage-dono." Naruto suddenly shifted to an overly formal tone as he spoke. "I have been an overlord for relatively little, but I was trained by one of the best."

Tsunade rubbed the bridge of her nose. "You're good, I'll give you that." She said.

"In all seriousness, I'm giving you a chance to make this the easy route that will involve as little bloodshed as possible. It's what I want to happen. I don't want to have to decimate the population of this planet. So…" Naruto stood and turned around. "I'll await your response. We'll talk about the next steps if you agree and if you don't…"

There was a dragged beat, and Naruto's face became unrecognizable as an unfamiliar, cold smile drew itself there.

"I really don't want to but… If you leave me no choice, then, Konoha will fall first."

After he left, Tsunade slumped on her seat. "What is it with this village and generating ludicrously powerful missing nin?"

Hours later, she approved the new Bingo Book, which featured a picture and description of Naruto along with an SSS Rank Threat Notification with an order to Evacuate on sight. The shit raining on the best day of her life just kept coming, she mused.


	12. All that I see, I conquer

Naruto smirked, looking over his shoulder at the gathered chunin and jounin. He let out a low chuckle, seeing the concerned faces they sported. "I held my promise. I brought Emopants back. It's up to you what to do with him." He said, shrugging. "I do recommend that the next time we meet you have the sense to get out of my way… Suigetsu, Karin, I'm taking Juugo with me. You're free to come with me if you want to."

"Naru-"

He turned around and glared sharply at the pinkette who gasped under his gaze.

"We're going with you, man! There ain't no way I'm staying with the tree-huggers." Suigetsu said. "'Sides, you've got all the cool swords!"

Naruto chuckled. "And you, Karin? I don't think Sasuke will ever get out of Konoha again, so if you want to stay, I won't hold it against you."

Karin laughed. "We're family, we're supposed to stick together." She said. Naruto smiled and offered her his hand, which she took eagerly. "Okay then, we're going to see if my castle is ready! We're off! Shunkanidou (Instant Transmission)!"

Meanwhile Tsunade frowned, looking on from her office.

* * *

"You were serious?" Tazuna asked, raising an eyebrow. "How the hell did you expect me to think that you wanted a giant ramen bowl as a fortress! That's super stupid!"

Naruto slumped in his seat. "My dream fortress! I will never have it!" He cried, holding up his hands and crying his pain to the heavens.

This caused everyone to laugh their asses off, seeing the insanely powerful Demon Overlord acting like the child he looked like. "Anyway… I think it looks cool." Karin admitted, looking in awe at the truly gigantic fortress that Tazuna had built in a couple days.

"How did you build this in the first place? Seriously, this is f*cking huge." Suigetsu asked.

"I'm not a mere Master Architect, I'm a Super Master Architect. So yeah, I can do many things that other people consider impossible, I'm just that super good."

The fortress was like something out of an M.C. Escher painting. How exactly Tazuna had built it involved great deals of demonic magic. After Tazuna had received help from Naruto's demonic army, he decided he could run free and go crazy with what he'd always wanted to do but never could since the laws of physics were in the way.

The Skulls and Witches made a living out of raping the laws of physics, and Tazuna was certain he would never quite be capable of looking at another woman the same way after seeing the Magic Knights and their… assets. Mortal women just couldn't compare.

Naruto was absolutely certain that if he ever saw the Seduction Corps, he'd die the happiest man on earth. "It's not the ramen bowl, but it is awesome, I'll give you that." The blond said. Yeah, maybe he'd give Tazuna a gift. "Motoko…" He said, turning around.

"Yup?" The now named swordsgirl asked.

Suigetsu blinked. "You know, in all this insanity I'd never noticed we never learned your name before."

Juugo, who'd recently woken up, came walking down one of the paradoxical hallways that somehow lead to one end of the castle despite beings somewhere else. Since he was no longer high, he was starting to get confused. "Where is the bathroom?" He asked, looking around.

"Here's a map." Tazuna said, handing him said thing. "I have copies. It's super helpful."

Juugo took the map and once again resumed walking, only to see that the castle seemed to change as he walked around. Talk about an evil castle, trying to prevent him from getting to the bathroom. But he would not lose!

"That was random." Suigetsu said.

"Juugo seems to do a lot of things based on randomness." Karin replied.

Naruto shrugged. "He seems content." He said. "Anyway… like I was saying, Motoko, go back to the Netherworld and inform Reo that she has to start the transfer."

"Reo?" Asked Karin, raising one eyebrow.

"My netherworld's Demon Lord. Basically my second in command and the prime candidate to become Overlord if I quit." Naruto said.

"What are you going to do, meanwhile?" Motoko asked, tilting her head and looking adorable.

"I'm going to sow terror in this planet!" Naruto said, grinning. "Oh, and until Reo gets here, Karin is in charge. And don't worry, you'll know who Reo is. She's the only Angel around, after all."

Karin's jaw dropped.

"Dude, you have an angel working for you?"

Naruto laughed at Suigetsu's question. "Even better. I _created_ an angel!" He said, grinning maniacally "And she's a Demon Lord. I love irony!" He said, turning around. "Now, seriously, if anyone needs me, I'll be in Kumo, spanking the Raikage."

"I dunno. From what I know, he's actually a cool guy." Suigetsu said, shrugging.

"Supposedly, he's the fastest man on earth." Karin said. "Though I'm sure you're faster." She said.

"Of course I am!" Naruto said. "Anyway, I'm off!" He made a running start, blurring from sheer speed, before jumping forward, in Kumo's general direction.

There was a beat.

"Why didn't he teleport?" Karin asked.

Everyone else shrugged.

* * *

"So, you're supposed to be the top three Shinobi in Kumo, rite?" Naruto asked, looking at Yugito (winking in her direction only to receive a hiss), then looking at B (who he had fist bumped with earlier on account of his sheer coolness) and then at the Raikage, A, who merely glared severely at Naruto.

"You think you stand a chance, brat?"

Naruto laughed. "Stand a chance? I could kick all three of your asses without even breaking a sweat. Actually, since this battle will be so easy, I'll give you a handicap. I will use no weapons nor armor." He said, cracking his neck. "Let's get this show on the road!"

And indeed, the office couldn't hold the amount of concentrated awesome that was the fight that erupted. The Raikage delivered a devastating punch to Naruto's face, something that would have probably squished a human's head upon contact. As it was, it managed to throw Naruto back, but it dealt no real damage.

The Raikage growled, before jumping forward, engaging the lightning armor and continuing his attacks, only to see the brat weave around every single one of his attacks like he could see them coming.

"You know, if you were aiming somewhere other than my face, I might have trouble dodging them." Naruto informed calmly, his head quickly going back and forth between two locations, avoiding A's massive fists.

What Naruto didn't know, however, was that A was merely keeping Naruto occupied while his brother and Yugito unleashed their tailed beasts. It was, however, taking far longer than expected.

The reason was something that deeply shocked A. "Yugito, B, what the hell is taking you so long!?" He yelled, as he actually began fighting seriously all out, forcing Naruto to actually block and parry attacks instead of just casually dodging them.

"I… I don't know!" Yugito yelled. "Niibi doesn't want to come out!" She said, rushing forward with her one tail being surprisingly thin and the cloak surrounding her surprisingly weak, given how it wasn't boosting her abilities to ridiculous levels.

"That actually makes perfect sense." Naruto informed, as he ducked under a wide claw swipe, crouching down and then jumping up, slamming his fist on Yugito's chin and sending her away. "The Niibi knows when its outmatched."

However, eight tentacle-like appendages surged to try and catch the blond, who merely grabbed one and pulled the Hachibi towards himself, away from the destroyed office and, spinning around and letting go of the tail, towards the sky. "But the Hachibi seems too dumb to know!"

A took the moment that the brat jumped towards the Hachibi, possibly to continue his combo, to jump behind him and jackhammer him back to the ground, which created a huge crater around what he hoped was Naruto's corpse. Except he rose up and dusted himself off like he hadn't even felt it.

This time, the two tailed beasts came full out and their Jinchuurikis pulled every bit of power they could to obtain the most powerful forms of their cloaks, coordinating their efforts to try and box in the smallest blond in the vicinity, but again, he seemed to be casually capable of keeping up with the both of them.

Only when A joined the fray did they actually begin to land blows on the blond, and again, he didn't seem to be all that bothered by attacks that would have squished other human beings, and every single time he so much as tapped them they felt as if they'd just been struck by a freight train at full speed.

"My life is brilliant! Your life's a joke! You're just pathetic! You're always broke!"

And the worst part was the he was taking it so casually as to freaking SING while they were fighting. He wasn't even having trouble with his breath or anything. Seriously, what the hell WAS that thing!? It certainly wasn't human!

"Your home-made Star Trek uniform really ain't impressing me!"

He suddenly began fighting back more intently, actually countering every single one of their attacks. He actually had trouble ending the fight right then and there mostly due to the two Jinchuurikis, who kept covering each other.

"You're suffering from delusions of adequacy!"

A grunted and decided to try electrocuting him by grabbing onto his neck and letting the lightning armor run through him, but again, he didn't even twitch. He used this chance to grab A's arms, spin him around and smash him into B. When Yugito tried to slash his throat open with her claws he grabbed her hand before it caught his neck and pulled it back, eliciting a whimper of pain.

He actually pulled her close to him, to sing in her ear.

"You're pitiful! You're pitiful! You're pitiful, it's true! Never had a date, that you couldn't inflate! And you smell repulsive too!"

He actually took a sniff from Yugito as he said the last bit. "Actually, scratch that, you smell sexy." He added, completely dropping his singing voice for an instant.

But then it picked right back up as Yugito felt a concentration of Chakra or… something like that, and an explosion of green tinted wind sent her flying away.

"What a bummer being you!"

He called, twisting his own body in the air to avoid the incoming B, covered in swords.

"Okay, this song obviously pisses you off, so let's change it, eh?" He said, grinning widely.

B narrowed his eyes. "Do ya just need a map? You should just put on some rap!"

Naruto narrowed his eyes. "That ain't rap, my man." Naruto said, shaking his head. "Lemme show you how it's done!" He said, grinning. He kicked Yugito away, who was still pissed about the fact that her shirt had been shredded from the back, almost leaving her modesty out for everyone to see. "First, I've gotta ask you a question, and it might help me know why you can't rap."

The boy grew serious, causing B to frown.

"Have you ever been hated or discriminated against?" Asked the boy, catching B for surprise. He'd been, but only briefly, until his brother demonstrated that the seal keeping back the Hachibi was strong enough to hold. Nobody had hated B himself.

"No." B replied, truthfully. As did Yugito. A remained silent, however.

"I have; I've been protested and demonstrated against." The blond continued, his tone growing dark, quick and deep. There was hatred in his every word. "Picket signs for my wicked rhymes, look at the times, sick as the mind of the motherfucking kid that's behind."

"Well, apparently, even a little kid can rap better than you, B." A said, deadpan.

Yugito might have cracked a smile if right now her back didn't feel like someone had sharpened Kunai on it.

"All this commotion emotions run deep as ocean's exploding, tempers flaring from parents just blow 'em off and keep going!" He said, running forward and actually turning to the offensive as he did. Yugito only saw a blur before she was smashed against the ground from a smack in the back of her head.

"Dammit!" A yelled, cranking his armor up to eleven, just enough that he could match the kid in the speed department and again engaging in blow for blow combat.

"Not taking nothing from no one give 'em hell long as I'm breathing, keep kicking ass in the morning and taking names in the evening!" The boy continued as blows rained on the Raikage's guard, all of them going through his armor, although greatly weakened. The only problem was that the armor was eating through his chakra fast.

B grunted. "Well, hot damn, the kid CAN rap!" He said, trying to cut the boy to ribbons with his swords. Since both he and his brother were fighting at full power, he actually stopped the boy from singing, forcing him to take them seriously.

"Okay, maaaybe I underestimated you guys a tad." Naruto admitted, as he parried B's sword with… his hand? That's hellishly tough skin. He jumped back, disengaging. Then he smirked. "Just fitting, since I forgot how the lyrics continue." Naruto admitted. "That's the only part I remember since it kinda matches up with my life. Somewhat."

"Anyway… Remember this. I will take over this world. You're but a stepping stone in this goal. If you're the strongest Kumo has to offer… you will fall."

He turned around, his cloak flaring behind him as he vanished with a whisper of "Shunkanidou".


	13. Family Reunion

"Aren't you gonna go there yourself?" Asked Karin. "I can't believe you fear the Kazekage when you fought the Raikage, the Hachibi and the Niibi on your own, and with a handicap even!" let it not be said that Karin hadn't been surprised by the decision not to attack Suna on his own. Naruto, however, turned around and started walking away.

"At least tell me why you're not going."

"Gaara and me go way back." He said, grinning. "Tell you the truth, I don't feel right even doing this much, but everyone has to make sacrifices, a little bit of discomfort is a small one." He said, pulling the window of his office in the castle open. Unlike the overblown throne room Tazuna had created, this room was relatively simple and easy to work in.

Even if there was a window that lead outside, he knew it was practically impossible to get there through ninja-walk, since the castle's architecture was quite keen on killing anything trying to climb it.

"That's not the only reason." Karin said. She, by this point, knew his chakra like the back of her hand. It was something so incredibly overpowering that she'd been forced to get used to it to the point she could perceive other people within it.

"Well, yeah, I've got other things to do." Naruto said, handwaving her concerns away.

"So, who's gonna go to Suna, then?" Karin asked. There weren't that many demons in Naruto's castle, as only the cleaning crew had been sent to make sure everything was in order, and as they were mostly prinnies and their overseers, it was unlikely that they'd be sent to fight. Karin knew that even she could take out several prinnies in a fight.

"I have a special unit I created solely for the purpose of doing something like this. They're called the Battery. You'll see why, you'll be accompanying them to Suna as the representative of the Uzumaki Clan there." Naruto said.

Karin smiled. She liked having authority. More than anything, she liked having authority over demons, beings that were as a rule more powerful than most ninja.

"You're going as a diplomat, though, you won't actually have command over them. Mercer, their leader, won't accept your commands anyway. If Reo'd gotten here already, I'd have her do it, but it seems she's taking her time, so…" Naruto shrugged. "Anyway, got places to go, people to meet and people to kill, so… Just look for a twelve foot tall white skinned horned demon with a canon for a right hand, no intestines and three eyes. You can't miss him."

* * *

Karin was clinging to the neck of Mercer, the Battery's leader, as they charged forward. The blue beings that were only a tad smaller than Mercer himself and very similar in form, followed, all at a steady pace. At least the journey wasn't boring, since they figured out a creative way to just plow through everything in their way to Suna, charging in a straight line. They could run fast enough that they didn't even need chakra to run over water, their canons shot pink energy that easily destroyed anything in their path.

The one thing they'd lacked at the beginning of the trip was motivation… Until Mercer provided an avenue to gain it.

"Lashing out the action returning the reaction, weak are ripped and torn away!" Began the leader, the rumbling of his chest as he spoke almost frightening Karin, who had to stick herself to his neck with chakra, lest she fall. "Hypnotizing power, crushing all that cower, Battery is here to stay!"

There was a yell of affirmation as the verse finished, causing Karin to yelp at the sudden, thunderous sound of the twelve blue monsters' voices at once.

"Smashing through the boundaries, lunacy is bound to me, cannot stop the" Mercer chanted.

"**BATTERY!" **The rest finished.

Again, Karin yelped. They were already in the desert, and they were already beginning their senseless destruction, shooting lasers everywhere as they continued forward.

"Pounding out aggression, turn into obsession, cannot kill the-" Mercer chanted again.

"**BATTERY!"**

This brought another yelp from Karin.

When she got back, she'd give Naruto the beating of his life for not mentioning that the Battery was composed of terrifying, insane demons!

* * *

"Hn… It took me forever to find you. Normally, I just seek the strongest signal but you were hiding yourself quite well... You're totally different from the guys I'm used to." Naruto said, a wide grin in his face as he walked into an enclosed, dark space. "So, how's life been treating you?"

"Ha ha, very funny." Said a rather sarcastic voice. "What do you want, Child of Sin? I have much to do and too little time to waste on lesser beings." The voice repeated.

"First of all… Take form. It's better for business." The blond said, his grin not faltering for a second. "Unless, of course, you want me to add a few billions to your 'in' list."

There was the sound of air whooshing, and there stood a form cloaked in black, covered from head to toe in vaguely bonelike armor. "What is it you seek, Child Of Sin? Do you seek your end?" The voice spoke, tauntingly.

Almost as fast as the being took form, Naruto was holding it by the throat, having to float to lift it off its feet. "I'm here for something very important to me." He said, his voice dismissive as he spoke. It was an alien tone on someone such as him, as exuberant as he usually was.

The bonelike figure's hand snapped to try and knock off the grip on its throat, but the hand remained strong. "What… th-"

"I'm not the usual scum you deal with, Master Of Death." Naruto said, his grin getting a tad deranged. "I have killed uglier than you, believe me." He said, letting go of the thing's throat and tossing it back carelessly as he did. "You will give me what I want."

"And if I refuse?" The spiritual form asked.

"I will end you and put someone more… cooperative in your place. As simple as that." He said, shrugging.

"Very well… what is it you wish, then?" The creature asked, raising itself again.

"I want… the soul of Namikaze Minato." Naruto asked, his voice mildly sinister as he spoke.

The Master Of Death seemed pensive. "Which of them? I've got three." It asked.

Naruto stumbled. "You've got three!? How is that possible?"

"The first is some idiot who thought he could defeat me in a fight. The second is the first's son who thought he could save his father's soul and the last is the one you seek." The reaper said, nonchalant as it could ever be. "Minato is a popular name in that family, what can I say?" The reaper said, shrugging.

"Anyway, you know the one I want so just bring him to me. I have… things to discuss with him."

"I am afraid I cannot do that. I don't know WHERE he sealed his own soul, but I've only got the majority of it. The part that contained his identity is elsewhere. Clever fucker, managed to keep himself from getting eaten. His soul was one of the tastiest I've ever had, but it has always felt hollow."

"Great, just great…" Naruto said, rubbing his temples. "I've got an idea where he might be…" He said, before walking up to the reaper. Then, he unbuttoned his orange shirt, using his hands to grab both it and his coat to keep them open. "Remember this?"

"Oh, yes. One of my better creations. A completely foolproof seal that can only be broken by the one who wears it. What about it?" The reaper would've blinked, if it'd had eyes. "You think he was good enough to subvert me when I was freaking eating his soul?"

"The man's supposed to be the best damn ninja there ever was so… it's possible." Naruto said, shrugging another time. "You should probably check."

The reaper punched Naruto's stomach, going through it and tinkering inside the seal. "Oh, here he is, let me bring him out! And there's the other one that got away from me! What a lucky day!" The death god said excitedly, pulling his hand out with significant force, removing two small balls of blue fire.

"So that's what a soul looks like?" Naruto asked. He noticed that staring at the two orbs had made him feel like someone was jabbing a needle through his temple. Having had far worse, he let it be for the time being. He'd have a cleric check him over if it persisted later.

"No, that's what those two's souls look like. Mine looks like, well, this, and yours looks like… well, whatever your true form looks like." The reaper said.

"True form?" Naruto asked. Pram had talked to him about how every demon had a form they used every day and a form they used solely when unleashing their powers to the limit. The 'true form', as it was called. It was something that only very high level demons could use, and there was only one demon in record who could remain in his true form indefinitely, the most powerful overlord of all time, Tyrant Overlord Baal.

She'd told him that when he got powerful enough, he'd develop his own true form, and he was eager to see it.

"I don't know how the mechanisms for unlocking it work, I only know that the shape of the soul has to do with it." The reaper explained, and when Naruto shrugged, the Reaper decided that it was unimportant anyway, tossing the two fiery blue balls to the ground, where they exploded in smoke and revealed…

…Uzumaki Kushina and Namikaze Minato in all of their glory. You know what they look like.

"Somehow, I have a bad feeling about this, even though I don't know what 'this' is." Minato muttered, looking around and rubbing the sleep off his eyes. Being dead for so long makes one a bit cranky.

"Finally! I finally meet the asshole that sealed the Kyuubi within me! And the idiot who enabled it is right here too!" Naruto said, looking both at the reaper and at Minato. "And… some woman I don't even know…" He said, looking at Kushina. Then he rubbed his chin, falling into his standard thinking position. "That… is the most beautiful hair I've ever seen." He said, nodding to himself. Then he offered an exaggerated thumbs up gesture. "I approve!"

Throughout all this, both Minato and Kushina had been utterly shocked. Although both were even further stunned by his words, they seemed to regain their composure only to lose it again when Naruto said the last bit. "N-Naruto!?" Minato said, feeling his mouth gaping, and his word echoed by his wife. "Is that really you?"

"Yep! Uzumaki Naruto in flesh, bone and concentrated kickassery!" Naruto said, grinning proudly. "And you're the jackass who sealed the Kyuubi inside me, the Yondaime Hokage!" His grin seemed warm, open and friendly for a second. Then, however, he looked at the reaper. "You… might wanna get out. This could get messy."

The reaper nodded, shuddered and disappeared.

"Naruto… I finally got to meet you…" The red haired woman spoke, taking a few steps forward. "You're… all grown up now…" She said, as she started to crouch down to his level.

"Uhm… lady… you're hot and all, but I don't even know your name so…" Naruto said, taking a step back.

"I'm getting silly… My name is Uzumaki Kushina! I am your mother!" She said, smiling widely and reaching for her beloved son…

Only to feel her breath leave her as her son _snarled_ at her and pushed her away. "No you're not!" He said, his eyes red. "You can't be… my mother abandoned me… my mother left me because I was a monster!" he snarled.

"Don't be silly, Naruto… I didn't abandon you… how could I abandon a baby as cute as you? How could I confuse you with a monster?" Kushina asked, trying to close in again. "Please… believe me… I never wanted to leave you but…"

"You… you're not! I didn't have a mother! My mother left me all alone!" Naruto said, shaking his head. "I don't know who you are, but if you don't step back, I will kill you, search for your soul in the Underworld and drag you all the way to Hades!" Naruto snarled again, raising his right hand where a very condensed ball of green colored energy began to spiral with the force of a hurricane.

"Is that… That's the Rasengan. That's my technique…" Minato said, gasping. "I'm glad that Jiraiya at least taught you that much…"

Naruto snorted, thinking of the… three things that Jiraiya had taught him. He would've laughed, but his headache was getting worse by the second, and he was beginning to doubt this was a good idea.

"Anyway… what Kushina-chan said is true. She's your mother, Naruto… and I… I am your father."

The sphere dispersed with an extremely violent burst of wind.

"You… you…" Naruto took a step back. Then another. "You cannot… this is impossible… all my life… I've believed… I was just…" He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. "You're not my parents… I don't have parents…" He shook his head. "I AM A DEMON! I have no parents!"

Minato frowned, taking a step forward. "Naruto, you are not a demon!" He yelled.

"Yes, yes I am! I am a Demon Overlord!" Naruto responded, taking another step back and grabbing his temples, his headache starting to pound him. "And…" He seemed to be struggling, since his headache was getting worse by the second. "My parents hated me… they gave me up because I was a monster."

He felt a pair of slim arms go around his shoulders, and he heard someone sing a lullaby he… remembered? No… he was familiar with it but… it sounded fuzzy, distant. He couldn't concentrate. He didn't want to. He felt… warm.

"You're not a monster… I'm so sorry…" the voice was so soft. Naruto could feel something wet falling on his forehead, but he could scarcely think, his headache being the only thing he heard in his head, its relentless pounding. Only the voice could cut through it, and it left only more pain in its wake.

"I'm sorry… we left you all alone."

He looked up. He could see a fuzzy white form. He felt something from deep within him bubbling towards the surface. He didn't know what it was. He wanted to move. To run away. He wanted to hide. He wanted to get away from those strange feelings that these two strangers surged on him.

The more and more alien the feelings became, the more he wanted to get away.

At some point, with the added pressure of his instincts screaming at him to get away and the ever growing headache, he had apparently stood up and tried to run, only to feel a second pair of arms, stronger arms, secure themselves around him.

Shortly thereafter, however, all he remembered was blackness.


	14. Duty to the Family

The views... The views... they are 9001!

That means...

Yes...

The views...

ARE OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAND!

And yes, I was holding back this chapter entirely to invoke that meme.

Yay for my DBZ Fanboy Status!

* * *

"Ugh… this feels like when I thought I could challenge Pram to a drinking contest… Well, my ass is not sore this time…" Mumbled the blond, shaking his head slightly. There was the muted, distant sound of two people yelling and the occasional explosion, but he didn't even care enough to lift his head and watch it.

There was something very wrong with him. Demons are acutely aware of their power. Always in complete control and knowledge of their mana. Well, the skilled demons, anyway. The weak little pawns often were incapable of telling their own, let alone anyone else's, powerlevel.

Anyway, he was weak. Pitifully weak, in fact. So weak that he felt even Axel could dispatch him with a few punches. Then he remembered the last time he'd held the idiot ball and smacked himself in the forehead. The action increased his still pounding headache, but he'd had worse just five minutes ago. "What kind of idiot lets a known enemy tinker with their soul?" He asked himself, standing up on wobbly legs.

Only to see a whitish blur rush past him, followed by a black and red one. They were stopped by an invisible wall a meter past him. "Okay, maybe challenging the grim reaper wasn't the smartest thing I've done…" started a feminine voice.

"Gee, you think?" Retorted a masculine one. Naruto shook his head and cleared his thoughts, since for a moment his voice sounded like someone he ought to recognize but couldn't.

Their presence felt familiar. Incredibly so. So familiar, in fact, that they felt like they were two of his clones just standing there. He'd stopped using Kage Bunshin once he figured out it cut his mana and distributed it amongst the clones, making them significantly weaker than himself. It was useful to take out hordes of weaker demons, but against anything above standard overlord level they were a hindrance.

So why would he use them against something that could knock him out?

He turned around and saw a blond man and a redheaded woman, then his brain clicked. "Oh." He said, raising one eyebrow before turning around to face the black cloaked looming figure wielding a rather sinister scythe. "You know, if you wanted to steal my mana, you could've been smart enough to kill me right afterwards." Naruto spoke dismissively.

"I tried!" The reaper whined. "Even with two hundred levels ripped right out of you, you are still far too tough to be eliminated with anything short of my special skills, and these two maggots keep interfering when I try to!"

The blond man frowned. "Are you kidding me!? Like I'd let you kill my son after he got over the whole denial thing!"

The woman sighed. "You're supposed to be the genius and you're the idiot that hasn't thought up a way to get the hell out of here!" She said, bopping the elder blond in the head. Then she slammed her hands together and a barrier of what Naruto had to assume were chakra chains surrounded him as the reaper's sinister scythe descended upon his face, only to crash uselessly, only barely slowing down the blade.

Naruto's hands snapped to action and he blocked the blade with his bare hands, having to put far more effort into it than he usually would. He scoffed, however, at the face of exertion that the reaper sported (it was actually just a few beads of sweat running down its skull-mask).

A chain wrapped around Naruto's torso and pulled him back the moment he actually began to lose ground in the confrontation.

Naruto grunted and fell to the floor. His head hurt too bad, he couldn't concentrate and control his mana well enough to reinforce his body to the point where he could snap that silly scythe with two fingers. Whatever the reaper had done, it was more than simply stealing a few hundred levels from him.

"I'll figure out what the hell you did to me and undo it." The blond said, snarling and getting back to his feet. "But before that, I'm gonna force you to become my vassal! I am Demon Overlord Uzumaki Naruto!" Snarled the blond, his cloak flickering for an instant, floating on its own.

The redhead turned around to face him and see him adjusting a pair of gauntlets on his hands. She was a freaking sealmaster, so she could, as a matter of fact, analyze seals rather quickly. So could the blond man that was her husband.

All three other occupants of the dark pocket dimension took a step back.

Naruto snapped into action, rushing forward and delivering a single punch to the stomach of the bony figure of the reaper. There was a shockwave emanating from the creature as it doubled over. It bowled over both of the humans in the enclosed space and had them landing painfully on the ground.

The ground shook as the reaper began to contort impossibly, as wind picked up and began centering around the middle of the creature's chest. "Big Bang Motherfucker!" Naruto yelled, jumping back as a hole spawned from the spot he'd punched and swallowed the reaper…

…Before illuminating the entire room in an amazing, Technicolor display.

"And that is how you bend over and rape the laws of physics! Did you get the lesson kids? That's good! Now, I will take another nap!"

Before the blond or the redhead could say or do anything, Naruto collapsed back to the ground, notably less in pain than last time.

* * *

As soon as the space collapsed with the… death of the grim reaper? they'd gotten out. Minato didn't even want to think about that one. He didn't want to think that his son had just pulled the rest of his soul out of the Shinigami's belly, somehow revived both him and Kushina, failed to recognize them, gotten two fifths of his power stolen and then proceeded to kill the reaper with one punch. It, however, didn't make it any easier to stop to. His brain kept going over the whole thing.

Well, his son was at least powerful enough to take care of himself, that was for certain, but what was the whole deal about being a demon? He seemed to be around twelve, and his ears were weird, but that was it. Well, he was also freakishly strong and durable, but he was a jinchuuriki, those were expected traits.

"Unhand my lord before I have to get physical." Spoke a smooth, silky voice that pretty much radiated power.

Minato and Kushina were instantly on guard. "Who are you!? And what's this 'my lord' business!?" Kushina nearly snarled, her chains popping from her back and floating threateningly behind her. They both turned around to face a woman who, despite her odd choice of dress, wasn't anything too threatening, considering she had a cane she seemed to be leaning on.

There was also a halo on her head, and it seemed her outfit was composed mostly of feathers.

The woman frowned as she stared at the two. "You are similar to my lord. Your mana signatures are almost identical. Who are you?" She asked in a guarded, if more than a bit hostile, tone.

"I asked first!" Kushina said, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

The blond grinned good naturedly, though even Kushina could tell that he was prepared, given the tri pronged Kunai he held in his right hand.

"My name is Reo, Demon Lord of this world." The woman introduced herself, her tone only slightly pleasant as she did. "Answer my question." She added, harshly.

"Demon Lord?" Kushina asked, raising an eyebrow. Then she seemed thoughtful. "What did Naruto-kun said he was? A demon overlord, right?" She asked, looking confused.

Reo the Demon Lord looked at her questioningly. "You know My Lord?" She asked, her right hand lifting the jeweled cane she held from the ground. Minato could tell that her feet weren't actually touching the ground, which made him feel a chill that ran down his spine. "Are you his enemies?"

"What's YOUR relationship to my son!?" Kushina asked more than a bit forcefully, not even seeing Minato's strangled face as she so casually disregarded the sheer power that the being in front of her radiated.

Reo blinked, looking positively surprised. "You are… My lord's mother? I do believe this requires a more lengthy explanation…" She said, resting her cane against the ground once more. "Oh, yes, I do require an explanation before I rip you two to shreds..."

"Why does everyone want to kill us?" Minato asked, clearly frustrated.

* * *

Back at the Eldritch Castle...

"This might have to do with perceived neglect from your part. I admit, if I did not know that you were dead for the past sixteen years, I might be disinclined to prolong your miserable existences." The blond woman with braided hair explained, sipping on her tea calmly. Minato had expressed his wonder at the eerie, eldritch architecture that his son's castle in wave sported.

Kushina was busy trying to drill Uzumaki Etiquette into the chefs that staffed the kitchen that were somehow fucking penguins. He had many a laugh at their expense, upon learning that they explode when thrown and that the only reason for their existence is so that they can be abused. Supposedly, it cleanses their sins faster, but Minato didn't buy it.

They were, however, tremendously amusing to abuse.

"I know that what I did wasn't precisely what a good father would do, but I was Hokage at the time, can you blame me for putting the lives of thousands of people over my own, my wife's and my son's? Besides, how was I supposed to know that people would react that bad? I became Hokage because I thought Konoha was awesome, so of course I'd be blind to its flaws!" The man said, frustrated. "This is just unfair judgment!"

"Indeed. Were my lord recovered, he'd most likely praise you for the sacrifices you chose to make for the greater good of your people. Sacrificing one and one's own kin for one's charge is a philosophy that he shares with you. After all, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few." The angelic woman said, settling her cup down.

"You know, I'm kinda surprised that I'm hearing this from a demon lord. Aren't you guys supposed to be all about being evil and all that?" Minato asked, truly curious.

"Demons are petty and rather unpleasant individuals in their vast majority, but then again, so are humans, and if you permit my racism, angels are perhaps the worst in this regard. I am a fallen angel not for my inability to be good, but for my inability to be, as was so eloquently put by My Lord, a colossal bitch." Reo said. "Regardless, I do believe you should perhaps meet with Lady Pram, My Lord's Master."

Minato raised an eyebrow. "Master?" He asked. "Isn't he some sort of demon king or something?"

"As powerful as he used to be, and still is, Lord Naruto is only on the middle of the scale of power. Lady Pram is, meanwhile, one of the more powerful overlords out there. She was the one who provided My Lord with the training to attain the status of Overlord in a measly two years of time."

Minato whistled. "Going from human preteen to overpowered demon overlord in two years sounds like an amazing feat."

"It is." The woman said, nodding towards him. "Regardless, we should prepare. Chances are that My Lord will most likely wish for ramen when he wakes, and I'd rather not endure the temper tantrum he will throw if he does not have it. It's annoying as fuck."

Minato was left dumbfounded. "Did I just hear an angel say 'fuck'?" he muttered to himself. Then he turned around and looked out one of the windows that couldn't logically give one a clear sight of the training grounds (his current mind-map said that it should be staring directly downwards) but still gave it, only to settle his eyes on a lone human teenager randomly smacking about demons with a black sword that was bursting with energy.

He took a deep breath and ran a hand through his messy hair.

"I wonder when all this will settle in and how big of a headache I'll get when my brain starts processing it." He mumbled to himself. Then he heard an explosion and looked to see Kushina waving one of those penguin things threateningly at the rest. Apparently, they'd messed up her food. "At least she seems to be handling it well…"

* * *

Karin, however, was not handling her task well at all. "Can you stop singing for just one minute?! We're already done, we're not supposed to strike a crippling blow you dolts!"

Mercer scoffed, before turning back to the hidden village they'd chosen to unleash hell in. "Searching!" He declared, smirking widely when purple flashes of light shot into the sky and remained there in ball form.

The white skinned monstrosity jumped into the air, hauling Karin with him.

"**SEEK AND DESTROY!"** the Battery yelled, as the purple balls of energy plus Mercer's own attack quickly rained down on the assembled squads of ninja, disrupting their efforts and covering the Baciel Battery's Retreat.

* * *

Juugo handed Naruto a tray with a cellphone on it. The blond chose not to dwell on the fact that the orange haired giant with a tree on his head was, as a matter of fact, wearing a tiny maid's uniform. Apparently he'd lost a bet with Suigetsu over who would wear it. "Get me Axel. Tell him that I'm commencing Operation BIB. He'll understand." He spoke into the cellphone, before slamming it shut and destroying it.

"What was that about?" Juugo asked.

"Suffice to say… I'm about to ring Hell's Bells…" Naruto stated, breaking out into insane cackling.

* * *

Say, if I wrote a Neptunia fic, would anyone read it? It's not a very popular fandom, but the game IS very fun and, most of the time, gives me a rather considerable amount of ideas. If any of you like what I write, maybe you could check out my other works, too, or visit the forum I share with a couple other readers, most of whom are leagues above myself. It's in my profile! It's the best way to bug me to hurry up, other than reviewing and telling me to, anyway.

If you're lazy... Ala_Iridia/index/


	15. Breaking Stride

A blond man with purple lightning bolt shaped eyebrows slammed his phone down with an almost solemn look on his face. Methodically, slowly, almost excruciatingly so, he turned his chair around. In the dim lighting of the room, his smirk went unseen.

His white teeth would've sparkled were he in a lit room. He stood up, almost knocking the chair off. He threw his head back and laughed. "Finally… finally it's time…" He said, as his mad cackling subsided.

The spotlights lit and the young man in a white longcoat with an extremely high disco collar and purple pants was revealed in full. He struck a pose, also removed from disco and quickly went through several iconic poses of many great artists that he would surely claim drew inspiration from him instead.

"Oh yes, it's time for the Dark Hero's triumphant return to the spotlight!"

* * *

Naruto shook his head. "Juugo, I swear to god, unless you put on pants, I don't want you in my castle." He said, glaring at the hulking figure in clothes too tiny for him. "And if Suigetsu complains about it, tell him that I'll shove the Onyx Blade up his ass if he pulls something like this again."

Juugo pouted but nevertheless dashed off to put on a pair of pants.

Naruto sighed. "I know you're there."

The fourth Hokage, Minato blinked. He was certain he was under a damn good genjutsu that should've hidden even his chakra. He decided to drop it, deciding that he might as well reveal himself. "Hi." Minato said, waving in a friendly manner. "How did you spot me? I was sure my genjutsu was perfect."

Naruto laughed. "You were given form from my mana." The boy explained, smiling at the elder blond. "If I weren't able to sense you, I'd be an insult to demons everywhere." He said, cracking his neck. "Now… I assume you've been told most of the things mortals aren't supposed to know?"

"You are a demon king or something, Naruto." Minato said, sharply. "Frankly, I couldn't give any less of a shit about that. You're still my son. Though I will have to ask what to do now, since your angel was tight lipped in regards to that."

The smaller blond in the bed glared at the bigger one. "I should probably be more pissed at you than I am since, well, jinchuuriki stuff." Naruto said, waving his hand as if it explained anything. "I should tell you straight on… You're not my father and you will never be." Minato winced, hanging his head. "Neither will I accept your wife as my mother." The blond added.

Minato opened his mouth to protest but then felt the protest die in his throat when Naruto glared at him. A few seconds of silence passed before Minato gained his courage again. "I know there's no forgiveness for what I did. I accept the consequences of my actions. But… don't hate her because of it. If you want to hate someone… hate me."

"Hate you?" Naruto said, raising an eyebrow. "That would mean that I have to give a flying fuck about you at all. As of now… I don't. You're practically a stranger to me." He confessed.

Minato blinked.

"But… you seem like a nice guy and I'm willing to start over from scratch." He said, raising an arm. "Friends?" He asked.

Minato looked at Naruto for a full minute before stepping forward and grasping his hand, shaking it firmly. "You know, I kind of expected this to be more climactic, somehow." He admitted, scratching the back of his neck nervously.

It seemed an eternity before Naruto stopped pondering. "Yeah, me too." He admitted. "I guess it was kinda underwhelming to me too. Anyway… Are you aware of what I'm going to do?"

"Taking over the world?" Minato asked. "I've got the gist of it." He said.

Naruto nodded. "I didn't expect you to fall in on this. You're free to return to Konoha. As of now you're freed from service to me and all that that entails." The blond said, waving his hand. "As a friend, I can't force you to fight your own people."

"There are a lot of people who have a lot to answer for." Minato admitted, sheepishly. "What about Kushina?"

"Hm… her? I think she's bullying my prinnies, right now." Naruto said.

"How do you know?" Minato asked, raising an eyebrow in surprise.

"I can hear the explosions." Naruto said, dryly.

Minato winced at that and tried to offer him a sheepish smile. "I'll tell her to knock it off…" he said.

He was not prepared, however, for Naruto to laugh uproariously at this sentence. "Stop her?" He said, chuckling once more. "That's what they're there for." He said.

Minato blinked. "Seriously?"

"They're the souls of sinners. The more abuse they suffer, the faster they… Actually, I've never had a prinny pass on. Must've gotten a bad batch of sinners." He said, humming to himself. "Ah, whatever, more fun to torture."

"That sounds pretty dark." Minato admitted. "Even though they are fun to torture."

"Go on, try it. Throw one against a wall and tell me you don't want to do it ten times over."

It took a full hour for them to get back on track after they began playing 'throw the prinny'.

"Anyway… Your plan to take over the world… I'm in." Minato said, sitting down and letting himself relax for a moment. Naruto had yet to raise himself from the bed extremely big queen size bed, Minato understood that having a chunk of your soul ripped out of you was hard to recover from.

"Hm? Even though it might involve having to kick Konoha's ass?"

"I can minimize the real damage we do to the village while creating panic." Minato said. "It benefits me more as Hokage to do this. Plus, otherwise, I'd have to fight you and I don't think I'd come out of that one alive… Not if the fact that I haven't ever felt as strong as I am now and I'm only living with a little bit of your mana."

Naruto shook his head. "A fifth, actually. Exactly one hundred levels' worth. Both you and your wife have a hundred levels each." He explained. "Even if you two fought together, though, you still wouldn't be able to match me." He said, shrugging.

"Much less considering I'm nowhere near used to having as much chakra as I do now. Holding the genjutsu I used to sneak in here was really hard." Minato said, conversationally. "And as I understand it, you've got several vassals around my level anyway, so…"

"Yeah." Naruto said. "Plus, if shit goes south I can always use the most effective spell I know of."

Minato raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"It's something so horrible that I can't even describe it. I call it the Call Of-"

* * *

"Pram!" Yelled an obnoxiously loud and boisterous voice. "It's time that you returned my netherworld to its rightful owne-"

The Oracle Overlord flicked her wrist and the lion-like King Drake was sent flying off, his form merely a twinkle in the sky that was visible through the hole he'd made in the ceiling in his way out. Her eyes never left the file she was reading. "Hm… Interesting…" She muttered to herself. "It seems my idiot apprentice has gotten himself into quite a bit of trouble… again…" She said, feeling oddly like she'd just quoted just about every anime master ever.

* * *

"Yeah, that does sound horrible." Minato said, nodding sagely. "Anyway… what will you do once you've taken over the world?"

"Oh, that's simple. I'm gonna rub it all over the weaker overlords' faces, of course. Maybe I'll go taunt Sasuke about it for a while. First is power, then, the bitches!"

"You're twelve, you shouldn't be thinking, let alone talking about that!"

"I'm fifteen years old!" Naruto said. Then he paused. "I think." He added. "I guess my sense of time was a bit warped after I spent a month under a frozen lake fighting frikkin' sharks with frikkin' laser beams attached to their frikkin' heads."

"I'm not gonna lie, that sounds like an incredible awesome pet." Minato admitted.

"They would be if they weren't such giant dicks. Goddamn weresharks."

* * *

"So, basically, you want to join forces to defeat the threat that's currently attacking all ninja villages in the elemental countries." Said Mifune, looking at the strange man with red eyes and an incredibly bushy beard and moustache. He did have to admit, the man had class to dress, what with the nice, if foreign looking, suit and dark cloak. "Why didn't you say so from the start?"

"I did try, but the messenger I hired grossly misinterpreted my instructions and went on a bloody rampage instead."

Somewhere, CONAN the GOVERNATOR sneezed and looked up from the scroll he was reading. He cursed some unknown deity and continued reading the scroll about how to speak with an Austrian accent.

"Are you buying this?" The man dressed in all black asked, turning to stare at Mifune like he was crazy. "This man is obviously lying."

Namakubi the giant head nodded sagely. "He is."

The blond man nodded. "I am."

"See? He's honest." Mifune said.

Weapon X growled. "I don't trust him." He said, sniffing at the stranger. "I say we challenge him to a volleyball game."

"Why do you always want to play volleyball? You suck at it!" James Earl Jones asked, looking at the other bearded man.

"Because we play it at beaches. Beaches are warm. This country is cold as phuck, so I appreciate any chance to go for a warm, sunny beach, thank you." Weapon X growled.

"I thought you liked having an excuse to be all hairy?" Asked Mifune, raising an eyebrow. "Anyway… actually, I agree with you, we've been fighting for too long."

"We?" Weapon X growled. "I have been fighting for a long time, bub. Me 'n Creed have been out there in that battlefield, fighting nightmarish creatures that just refuse to die, for the last few days. You've been sitting here like a jackass!"

"I'm not the one with unlimited stamina and a healing factor!" Snapped Mifune. "Anyway, we're going to the beach!"

* * *

"And that's basically the story of why Pram compiled a list of things I'm no longer allowed to do in her netherworld."

Minato twitched. "Please tell me you're going for standard warfare. I could not bear to see what you would do to Konoha if you turned your pranking talents on her."

"Don't worry…" Naruto said, grinning… mischievously. "That I'm saving for AFTER I'm done taking over the world!"

"May god have mercy on us all when that day comes…" Minato muttered.

* * *

"So… Shoot." Kushina said. "How's our situation."

"He says he doesn't want us to be his parents." Kushina was about to hit him when she noticed the fact that he was smiling despite the horrible news. "He is, however, up to the idea of being friends and I'm gonna take whatever I'm given in this, since I can't really ask for more. He might be a bit more lenient with you, though. You'll just have to convince him."

Kushina sighed and collapsed on the surprisingly nice king-size bed that they'd been provided for the duration of their stay. She didn't know how it was that she could navigate the castle so easily, but she'd found herself actually leading Minato here. "I guess it's far better than what could've been." The redhead admitted. "I'll make him accept us again, because Uzumaki Kushina never gives up, 'ttebane!" Her conviction returned with her last statement.

Their room was surprisingly bare and mostly tasteless. Probably the user was supposed to personalize it to some extent, but neither of them felt up to the task. There were other things on their minds at the moment.

So much so that they didn't even notice the blue, peg-legged penguin drop by to leave a trolley filled with all sorts of foodstuffs.

* * *

I feel like shit... Sorry guys, not up to answering reviews today... If you're angry about the schedule slip, I'm actually very sorry, but I write fics as inspiration strikes me and believe me, I do try to sit down and write, but when I do that, Darkest Void is my main focus so... again, I'm sorry if you like this fic...


	16. Clap Of Thunder

His outfit was ready and, in his humble opinion, quite stylish. He was wondering how they'd been able to make a copy in such short time, particularly considering that the outfit he'd worn when he'd been brought back to life had been made almost unrecognizable by the Reaper's continued attacks, but decided to let it go.

"Why is it black?" He asked no one in particular.

"Black and red are our lord's colors, dood." The peg-legged penguin that had brought the outfit to him explained. "You're our lord's family so you have to dress like him, dood!"

Minato blinked. Thinking about it, Naruto did wear a rather similar coat to the one he was holding, a replica of his own except black where it should be white and with slightly brighter red flames. The fact that they seemed to reflect light like metal would despite being fabric could be chalked up to it being some kind of demonic, metallic fabric or something like that. "I guess it makes sense."

"Of course it does." A rather amused sounding voice spoke. "I thought it up!"

Minato chuckled. "Your ideas aren't famous, Kushina." Minato said, giving her a wide smile. "So… Are you ready for this?"

"Always." She said, nodding. "I've got a lot of pent up aggression to work through and I've also got the perfect target, 'ttebane!"

Minato scratched the back of his neck. "Figures." He said, laughing.

Kushina had opted with something more similar to her son's outfit rather than Minato's standard ninja gear. A simple black turtleneck that hid a red, short sleeved button up shirt over black dress pants (that were somehow comfortable enough to move in) and her son's very coat thrown over it.

The prinny that had brought them their food and clothes guided them to the throne room, and both Minato and Kushina let out a loud whistle. It was the first time they were in the more opulent part of Naruto's castle. Then again, the thing broke the laws of physics in so many ways it made the Hiraishin look like someone running at a moderate pace by comparison.

The throne itself was a rather simple, if very large, one. It dwarfed Naruto's small form and made him look even tinier. Biting her lip was all Kushina could do to stop herself from suffocating her son through murderous hugs. "S'up?" Naruto asked, turning to face them, then he started looking them up and down appreciatively, before giving them both a thumbs up. "I like your styles!" he said, nodding to them.

Suddenly, there was a crack of lightning and a flash of thunder… wait… I think I messed that up. Anyway, point is, someone teleported in right then and there. A man with a very long beard, dressed in elaborate green robes and sporting the most ridiculous hat Minato had ever seen appeared from the light of the teleporting effect. "Sir! The cook you requested agreed to our proposition and will be moving here the following week!"

"That's great! I kinda was in the middle of a talk though so…" Naruto said, gesturing to his biological parents. The old man nodded and vanished the same way he came in. "Anyway! What's up?"

"Can't I come see you just because I want to?" Kushina asked, pouting.

Naruto laughed. "Don't think you'd come all the way here just to see me." He said, smiling.

"Actually… I would." Kushina admitted, smiling. "Anyway… you're going to begin soon, aren't you?" She asked, sharing a nervous look with Minato.

"Yep." Naruto said, then he stood up and floated down (his legs were far from long enough for him to reach the floor when sitting) to the ground before walking to a large window. With a snap of his fingers, the window's view changed to what seemed to be a gigantic half dome that had structures formed out of metal bars in abundance. There were literally hundreds of black boxes with strange designs of them being moved around by the countless beings working at the site.

They ranged from those strange things with no intestines to the perfectly humanoid to goddamn slimes, but they all had something in common, they were all working in tandem to make the quite impressive structure. "Never thought Tazuna could make a stage this awesome." Naruto said, grinning.

"What are you making that for?" Asked Minato, tentatively.

"Operation Back In Black." Naruto spoke. "I invited every ruler to the greatest festival ever thrown. If Tsunade goes along with what we discussed, she will call for a meeting of all five Kage here to save time."

Minato found himself frowning, and his questions voiced by someone else. "Naruto… what do you intend to do after they meet?"

"Declare war on all five of them, of course." Naruto said, smiling like a mad man. "I'm banking on them getting allied to fight me. If I can crush all five villages at once, nobody will question my claim to the world."

Kushina nodded. "I guess that makes sense."

"You told me you haven't hit Konoha yet." Minato began, his worry evident. "Considering you're technically still a leaf nin, some might think that you're sparing them."

"I was planning on hitting them today, actually. I just finished recovering. I sent a message ahead so they would gather, Baa-chan is supposed to give the announcement for the Nine Days Festival today." Naruto admitted.

The fourth Hokage placed a hand on his son's shoulder. "Let me do it, Naruto." He said, causing Naruto to raise one eyebrow questioningly. "You don't want to cause real damage, do you?" He asked, seeing Naruto scratching the back of his head and blushing. He wanted to pat his head, such a good kid he was in spite of being a demon. "Well, what better way to cause a panic than their greatest hero denouncing them for their sins against you?"

"He's right." Kushina said. "And I really, really want to spank a few people there." She added, cracking her knuckles.

Naruto laughed, openly, a sound that was melodious to both of his parents, both having wished they could have been the cause of his good cheer in life. "Okay, okay, you can go." He said. "Hm… Take Karin with you, though." He said, rubbing his chin in thought. "I know she acts like she's over it, but she still holds her crush to Sasuke. Probably."

"You want to know how he is, too, don't you?" Kushina asked.

"Well, he was my best friend, you know. Before the whole 'killing me for power' thing, anyway." He said, shrugging. "Anyway…" he then rummaged through his sleeves before pulling out two small golden seals with a red sphere on top. "These are Arcadias, basically, official seals denoting authority." He explained. "These should make you pretty much capable of ordering everyone short of Reo around. Just show them if anybody gives you shit, okay?"

Minato and Kushina nodded, each taking one of the small, pawn-shaped seals. "We'll be right back." Kushina said, winking.

"Before you go… Look around Konoha and tell me if you can find out just what the hell happened to the Kyuubi. Gaara told me it's still in Konoha, somewhere."

Both nodded again. "What will you be doing, meanwhile?"

Naruto turned around and faced them both with a smile. "Me? I'm gonna be doing the hardest job of them all." He said, confidently.

* * *

Minato's step was firm and sure. His grip on his weapon strong and ready. "Okay…" he began, taking a deep breath.

"Like we practiced." Kushina said, adjusting her coat.

Minato summoned every bit of the strength of his legs and, with a mighty push, launched himself no less than a hundred feet into the air. He yelped in momentary surprise at the power he displayed, right then and there, as he hadn't even added chakra to his leap, but steeled his nerves before long. A little spin to add force had him flinging a kunai the hardest he ever had.

It did not arc.

It went in a straight dive to its specific target, leaving behind itself the after effects of a small object completely destroying the barrier of sound. In mere seconds, it had reached its target and embedded itself deeply into the hard packed dirt of the main road that lead to the Hokage tower in Konohagakure no Sato, the village hidden in the leaves.

It did not bend or warp, despite the amount of force with which it struck the ground, and the prongs on its sides prevented it from digging too deep. Truly a mystery of craft, how such a weapon could even exist, though Minato was certain that it had been made specifically for him, he wondered if there were similar ones in his son's armory.

Without even a whisper, Minato grabbed the hand of his wife and, in a golden flash, they were gone.

"What the hell!?" Someone yelled, as the entire crowd behind Minato went into a commotion. With a much weaker leap this time, both he and his wife soon found their way to the balcony where Tsunade was standing, her jaw slack in shock.

"Y-Yondaime-sama?!" another person squeaked, more than shouted.

Minato grinned widely. "Greetings, people of Konoha. Yes, I am indeed Namikaze Minato." He began, walking ahead of Tsunade who found herself shushed by a quick motion from Kushina. "I must say that reports of my death were not exaggerated, but it takes more than a Shinigami to keep me down for long." He boasted, knowing full well that the crowd loved his displays of undiluted badassery.

He had, indeed, fought the reaper and although he would eventually have lost, he still had held his own for the hour it'd taken his son to wake up long enough to kill the Death God. He still didn't want to think much about how one could kill the representation of death, but then again, he didn't understand how demons worked anyway.

Some people questioned his wardrobe change, but didn't press very deep on that.

"Regardless, I am back and I wish to reunite with my family." He began, giving the crowd a warm smile. "So, does anyone know where my son, Naruto is?"

The crowd had been in an uproar of applause and cheers until that moment, when it went deathly silent. It was as if he'd somehow managed to freeze the entire populace of Konoha with his words.

"Let's drop the charade, Minato." Kushina said, crossing her arms and glaring at the blond.

Minato shook his head, a sad expression in his face. "I am ashamed." He began, his glare sending chills down each and every person in the crowd's spines. "I am ashamed to think that I gave up everything I had and the future of my son to this village who spat on my sacrifice and his. I am ashamed that I once lead you, for you have not only forgotten and tarnished my legacy, but you have spit upon the very Will of Fire that made Konoha as great as it once was."

"Minato!?" Jiraiya's mouth was gaping, not only at his student's presence, but at the words he spoke, particularly since they hit him very close in the heart. He wanted to make up with Naruto, considering his already huge failure with the boy, but now… Now even his own student was turning his back on Konoha, just as his son had.

Minato's eyes hardened for an instant as he looked at Jiraiya… before he winked. Jiraiya felt a massively powerful fist sink into his stomach, causing him to double over. "What?" Kushina asked, her face so innocent that you would believe she didn't mean to punch him. "He groped me when I was pregnant and I never got a chance to repay him!"

"You're not the Yondaime! Someone's trying to trick us!"

And of course, everything devolved into chaos upon that point, and while Jiraiya nursed his sore stomach (damn, Kushina packed a punch!), he quietly decided to slink away until he was at a safe and hidden spot, where he took out the note that had been slipped into his pockets.

Some people would have thought him insane after his pupil had risen from the grave, for he had begun to laugh, a mad cackle that could only come from an insane man's elation.


End file.
